*Preventive* energy shots/drinks?

[CHfather]

So Tony Only corrected me when I suggested that energy shots/drinks are only effective at the time of an attack, saying that he used them successfully as preventives recently, and spiny said the same about the V-8 Fusion.  That was all news to me.  Has anyone else had success with that preventive approach?  If so, did you learn anything valuable about that method -- maximum/ideal time between the drink and the expected attack, for example?  I'm really interested in learning more about this.

[Rod H]

I've never had them prevent one. But they do help me abort them.

[Twisted Image]

After i aborted an attack with 2 cold redbulls on 20th december morning (weeks before i stared busting) i had not a severe attack after that ever since..I was in cycle a month or so by then but the 18th i was hit badly. 3 hours KP 10, 9, 8. After the redbull abort my attacks where less severe and way..way shorter. Also the patern changed to only nightly, all the bad ones i had before started in the morning waking up. Could be coincidence. Thinking it is only an abortive method i didnt drink redbulls anymore. Didnt payd attention to it untill now. That brings a question. Are there any known cases that this happend with O2 as well? This often/always is mentioned only as an abortive as well. Correct me if im wrong / not helping / read over it. I got to admit im on a big learning curve here...

[Tony Only]

I've never heard of successfully preventing a hit with O2, many have tried. I think the mechanisms of action are very different on O2 and energy drinks. Vasoconstriction probably being connective mechanism on both though.

[Tony Only]

In my last cycle last year I used energy drinks almost only as preventatives. I felt kind of stupid why I had not tried that ever before. I got the idea to try them out from migraine sites where lots of people aim to prevent their migraines with coffee. The other reason why I went at it was that my usual preventative, liquorice root tincture, was not responding well so I started thinking maybe dilation was a bigger issue for this particular cycle and for me. I would suggest just about anyone who can tolerate energy drinks (especially if they already work on hits but also if they don't) to try them as preventative as well for at least a week - if hits come like clockwork it should show it's response easily. But they took me a few days to reach the optimum prevention. I still don't understand how they worked so well though, I got shelter for hours. It can't be just taurine?

 

EDIT: At least on me when I used energy drinks as preventative, I didn't need to use the whole drink, or the same amount used to abort. For me 1/3 - 1/2 of the abort amount worked as a preventative, fine tuning that based on the strength of the shadows.

 

To add to the above:

On this particular cycle I had little to no success on breaking the cycle with tryptamines so I had not used them in a while when going at it with energy drinks, I don't know does this play some kind of part with my great response. I also had no chance to obtain (switching) tryptamines I believed might have worked better than what I had (psilocybin & LSA).

 

I got the idea since I have a habit of listening to shadows, do I need to abort with O2 or not, and sipping energy drinks. I started to notice they might prevent hits completely on very small amounts. When I decided to try it out, I also made very sure not to use any vitamin B supplements (had been using strong vitamin B's every now and then) since I think these vitamins play a role in why energy drinks help (not just the taurine). I was also remembering some posts where people felt energy drinks don't work as well if you're using a lot of vitamin B. So all my vitamin B intake came from these drinks.

 

Preventing with energy drinks worked so well for me that I was able pretty soon to only use half a drink, later even less. But I'm a lazy guy. So when I had a whole day ahead of me full of things to do and even if I hadn't been shadowing or expecting a hit I noticed myself drinking these as kind of extra shelter to last the whole day. The more I used them (on hectic weeks) the more I was worried they might lose their potential like everything in CH. But they didn't, they didn't fail me once. When the cycle was over I quit drinking them. Since then there has been a short activation lasting a week or so (during "sun storm" in Finland) and again they came to my rescue.

 

I'm pessimistic as far as treatments and my personal case goes so I think they might not work this well every year. Then I plan on doing the switching, between liquorice root tincture and energy drinks.