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Smoking / trigeminal-autonomic reflex in headache


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Tobacco in the Elizabethan age was known as "sotweed."

Sot (Old English sott) - A person who is frequently drunk (Habitual drunkard)

Sot (Old French) - Foolish.

Prehistory: Small amounts of nicotine can be found in some Old World plants, including Belladonna  (Solanaceae) and Nicotiana Africana (Solanaceae), and nicotine metabolites have been found in human remains and pipes in the Near East and Africa.

Experts believe the tobacco plant, as we know it today, began growing in the Americas 6000 BC.

By 1 BC Tobacco was "nearly everywhere" in the Americas and the American aboriginal inhabitants had begun finding a number of ways to use tobacco, including smoking, chewing (and probably enemas or drank as tobacco juice) for medicinal purposes. It is also suggested that amongst some tribes it might have been used as an entheogen in religious practices as at extremely high doses, tobacco is said to become hallucinogenic. (Thought to be done only by experienced shamans, or medicine men.)

In 1492 (November) Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) discovered tobacco when he first set foot on the New World for the first time, landing on the beach of San Salvador Island (or Samana Cay in the Bahamas, or Gran Turk Island.)

The indigenous Arawaks, possibly thinking the strange visitors divine, offered gifts. The natives brought fruit, wooden spears, and certain dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance. (Columbus accepted the gifts and ordered them brought back to the ship. The fruit was eaten; the pungent "dried leaves" were thrown away.)

According to one story, the first European to sample tobacco was Rodrigo de Jerez, one of Columbus's crew members, who “smoked” tobacco in the West Indies and brought a pinch home with him to Spain.

Later the Spanish Inquisition imprisoned Jerez for his “sinful” and “infernal habit” of smoking. (When he was released seven years later, smoking had caught on.)

Tobacco reached the European continent at least as early as 1558, when a Spanish physician named Francisco Fernandes, was sent to the New World by King Philip II to report on its products, and brought back some plants and seeds. Sailors also brought tobacco back to Europe, and the plant began being grown all along the sea routes wherever they had trading posts.

In Europe tobacco plants first began to be grown in the herb gardens of a number of monasteries in Spain and Portugal. All kinds of experiments were carried out on tobacco to discover how to use it to greatest effect. To start with, tobacco was used to cure coughing, skin complaints and headaches.

Jean Nicot (pronounced niko) born in France, (1530-1600) gained employment in the service of the Keeper of the Great Seal of France. In that capacity he attracted the attention of the King, who made him his private secretary. He was then appointed ambassador to Portugal.

Among Nicot's friends in Lisbon was the scholar and botanist Damião de Goes. Once when Damião de Goes had Nicot over for dinner, he showed him a tobacco plant growing in his garden and told him of its marvelous healing properties. The application of the tobacco plant to a cancerous tumor allegedly worked wonders. Nicot tried treating an acquaintance's face wound for 10 days with the plant, with excellent results. Nicot became convinced of the healing powers of tobacco from Damião de Goes, Nicot obtained cuttings which he planted in the garden of the French Embassy. In 1560 Nicot wrote of tobacco's medicinal properties where he described tobacco as a “panacea”.

It was at around this time that Nicot introduced tobacco-snuff (in the form of  powdered leaf) to the Spanish Court, where doctors were attempting to cure Catherine de Medici (1519-1589, Queen of France during the reign of Henri II) and son Charles IX (1550-1574) who were both suffering from severe migraines 

Nicot had applied it to his nose and forehead and found it relieved his own headaches and recommended this remedy to the young prince to cure his crippling headaches. (“After a few powder tobacco takes his migraines alleviated”

Catherine de Medici followed suit and was so favorably impressed she decreed that tobacco was henceforth to be called Herba Regina, the "queen's herb." She soon became a keen tobacco-user, and the fashion of smoking tobacco for pleasure gained rapidly in popularity

"Snuff" tobacco owes its early success thanks to its introduction to Catherine de Medici. The treatment was such a real success that the Queen favoured its promotion in the whole court and the entire court started to snuff. It was first and only sold at apothecaries under various names such as : "Herbe à la reine", "Cathérinaire", "Médicée", "Herbe à Nicot", "Herbe à l'Ambassadeur"...

  Jean Nicot did a great deal to propagate the aromatic crop and as a tribute to him, botanists named the tobacco plant : "Nicotiana tabacum". In 1826, the pure form of nicotine was discovered and in 1828 physicists gave his name to one of the components of tobacco, namely nicotine.

"The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, and shuts up the mouth of the foolish," wrote W.M. Thackeray a hundred years ago;

SIR WALTER RALEIGH, popularizer of tobacco in England, was beheaded for treason. Upon Ralegh's tobacco box, found in his cell afterwards, is the inscription, "Comes meus fuit illo miserrimo tempo." ("It was my comfort in those miserable times.")

More on Catherine -

Catherine (humanist, patron of the arts) made a significant contribution to the French Renaissance. She was also a brilliant mathematician and an avid astrologer. (She is also said to be the inventor of High-heeled shoes and panties)

Catherine gained fame as the wife of the king and the mother to three others. As queen dowager she would be known as Madame Snake, with secret hideaways for poison rings and daggers.

Shocked

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There's a cheap, common, and mostly safe drug, in daily use for centuries by hundreds of millions of people that only lately has been investigated for its therapeutic potential

Why has interest in this potential cure-all been slow to develop? One reason: in its current forms the drug offers pharmaceutical companies no possibility of substantial profit.

Another, perhaps more important: the drug is reviled as the world's most addictive.

The drug, is nicotine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC526783

shocked

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Inherited traits that increase the pleasure of smoking

CHRNA5 nicotine receptor gene

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1043000/Taking-puff-cigarette-key-lifetime-smoking-scientists-say.html

Link in disruption of circadian rhythms and reward response

Clock gene regulates the reward response

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050614001947.htm

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/26/9377.long

Healthy Smokers Wanted

Earn up to $350

http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/research/clinical/study.php?sid=93

$600 for Alcohol Treatment Study

http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/research/clinical/study.php?sid=96

Dr. Scott Lukas exploring the potential of Kudzu as a treatment for alcoholism.

CH / O2 / Smoking

http://www.springerlink.com/content/nq1q7wu319017111

We conclude that cluster headache patients who smoked in the past, had shorter attacks and were pain-free interictally respond best to oxygen inhalation

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  • 1 year later...
There's a cheap, common, and mostly safe drug, in daily use for centuries by hundreds of millions of people that only lately has been investigated for its therapeutic potential

Why has interest in this potential cure-all been slow to develop? One reason: in its current forms the drug offers pharmaceutical companies no possibility of substantial profit.

Another, perhaps more important: the drug is reviled as the world's most addictive.

The drug, is nicotine.

I think there may be another reason why interest in this "mostly safe cure all in use by hundreds of millions of people", has been slow to develop, which is that (sorry for the let down here folks  :D) cigarette smoking is extremely carcinogenic......

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I have said it on here many times, that sometimes when I was going through a hit i would actually go out to my garage and chain smoke , i don't know what it was about it but it gave me some relief. I had to chain smoke though and puff puff fast.... It helped I mentioned it on here a few months ago in fact that I used to do this and it was strange to me. but i would pace back and forth really fast and smoke it was like i was getting a ton of O2 in my system mixed with nicotine.

I never really was a smoker smoker , more social while drinking in the past, I have chewed cope since i was 11 years old though and i still chew copenhagen daily. during my last cycle a few months ago i thought i would try a dip during a hit and it wasn't working out that well for me. in fact dipping seemed to be a trigger for me. the best trigger for me is booze though.

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  • 10 months later...

This is all really interesting...I have not gotten a chance to read the links in depth, but I will when I'm done with work.

A couple things I can comment on now though...

By 1 BC Tobacco was "nearly everywhere" in the Americas and the American aboriginal inhabitants had begun finding a number of ways to use tobacco, including smoking, chewing (and probably enemas or drank as tobacco juice) for medicinal purposes. It is also suggested that amongst some tribes it might have been used as an entheogen in religious practices as at extremely high doses, tobacco is said to become hallucinogenic.

Something to remember is that this is a completely different strain of tobacco than what we get in stores today.  The best way I had it explained was that old school tobacco was a serious intoxicating drug, and most of our pirates like Colombus could not handle the effects.  In an effort to not seem like such wussy's in front of the natives they went for lighter and lighter (less intoxicating) strains until they got something they could handle. 

cigarette smoking is extremely carcinogenic......

It is, and this is one of the more important things that cigarette smokers should know.  Our own surgeon general C. Everett Koop came out in the 80's telling us that the reason tobacco gives us cancer is mainly because we fertilize it with radioactive fertilizer (radioactive phosphate fetilizer) (no one listened).    There is a way to avoid this--by growing your own or buying the super expensive organic American Spirits...Sounds worth it to me.

A good read that explains this all a bit better-

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/forum/218/radioactive-tobacco.2012-07-15

Researchers have induced cancer in animal test subjects that inhaled polonium 210, but were unable to cause cancer through the inhalation of any of the non-radioactive chemical carcinogens found in tobacco.10 The most potent non-radioactive chemical, benzopyrene, exists in cigarettes in amounts sufficient to account for only 1% of the cancer found in smokers.

-Ricardo

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Yup, I agree with all of the above.  Especially in the fact that it is different for all of us.  I am a "pack a day+" smoker.  I will say with some amount of certainty that smoking is NOT a trigger for me as I have quit a few different times ranging from 3-7-20 days and it has been no difference either way.

BUT..... once I feel the shadows coming, a cigarette WILL speed up a full on attack.  Smoking while going through an attack would be physically impossible for me.  It just hurts too much and makes things that much worse.

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Same for me, if ya wanna turn the shadows into a full blown attack....light a smoke.Probably why ive never even considered trying pot to abort one.....just no way i could get it into me.

Now afterwards is a dif story,after going thru that i want a smoke.

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