Cluster headaches or migraines?

[rjb]

Hello Nexus,

I would very much like to hear your take on this. I have a medical appointment tomorrow and I'll bring the issue up then as well, but I'd like to get a totally impartial view on this.

I've been dealing - for what seems like most of my current life - with huge headaches. Well, what I thought were headaches anyway...up until about 2 years ago, I'd take some pain medication to help me get rid of them. However, after a while, I noticed I was eating way too much of those, while the condition didn't really get any better. So I've stopped using meds and worked my way towards accepting those things when they do happen.

Lately, I've been looking through lists of symptoms and reports from other users (on both medical and non medical boards) and I've been able to better identify those that I encounter.

1. Migraines: it seems that those were stress induced for me, and since starting meditation they disappeared almost completely; I think I used to have migraines, because those are (mainly) characterized by nausea, light sensitivity, pulsing veines - or at least from what I've read myself;

2. Cluster headaches - the symptoms encountered in other people reports seem strikingly similar to mine. I have from time to time this massive headache which would start right out of nowhere and hit me like a hammer. It seems to ALWAYS happen in the left part of my head, and for about 2 hours or sometimes more, I experience a very violent head ache, and sharp pain coming and going behind my left eye. My left temple pulses hard during this time, and I'm no longer in any mood for any thing at all. However, after 1-3 hours, the pain disappears, just as fast as it came. I understand how these pains can cause suicide in extreme cases, but luckily mine aren't that bad and I can cope with the pain. I usually have had about 1 of these attacks at least once a month, other times I'd get them weekly.

Since I've better learned about those, and heard about the possibility of treating cluster headaches with low doses of psilocybin and DMT, I've given them a try as well. With mushrooms, it seems like those would work on long term, while with DMT the pain is completely gone the second I start to feel the substance effects. For those purposes, I used 0.2-0.4g of mushrooms, and with DMT usually 5mg does the trick beautifully. I've also tried cannabis, but it only works with sativa for me, which is pretty hard to get by demand, so it's not really an option. Plus, I'd have to smoke pretty much of it, so not very efficient. I'm also thinking about starting to work with Syrian Rue alone for a while, but I need advice/further reading in this direction, which I'm hoping someone here can provide.

Thank you kindly,
Peace,

 

[Shaolin]

How do you react to LSD ?

 

[stolenface]

This is not a long term solution and I only discovered this 2 nights ago. Ive been having migraines once a month for a years now. However,I had not of had one for a while now because I was not able to feel them as I was on heroin for 5 years. Ive been clean for 7 months now and the Migraines have returned. The other night I felt one coming on so I decided to go to bed early and try and sleep through it, this did not happen. I slept for maybe 4 hours ,awoke at 4 a.m. and nearly in tears. I drank 16oz. of water and drew a warm bath. The water helped slightly for like 5 minutes , but only for the migraine to return. I did not know what to do and was desperate, so desperate- I was considering going out to try and find opiates - thank god I didnt. Wanting to avoid opiates, I decided to see if damiana might help as I had some lying around. I read online that it can help. I didnt really believe it would be strong enough at first but decided to give it a go anyway. I packed a very small bowl maybe like .3 or so and smoked it, by the third lungfull my migraine COMPLETLEY subsided. Just thought Id share another alternative with you , in case you dont want to have to trip everytime you want to eleminate a migraine/cluster headache. I feel for you though, as I have migraines and they are no fun .

 

[corpus callosum]

Migraines and cluster headaches have some features in common although the latter are generally regarded as more painful than migraines.One of the key questions to ask in order to tease out if its a migrainous or an autonomic cephalgic (ie cluster and allied-type of headache) process relates to the observation that migraineurs prefer to lie still and 'hide' from the world till they feel better because any physical activity tends to make them feel worse; in the cluster-type of headache extreme restlessness and a feeling of 'not knowing what to do with oneself' is very common, reflecting in part the autonomic arousal which is part of this type of headaches' pathophysiology.

 

[DeMenTed]

I watched a programme a few weeks ago about a guy who suffered from severe cluster headaches. He had tried everything the doctor threw at him and nothing worked.

The only thing that helped and apparently cured his headaches were psilocybe mushrooms. They gave him relief for up to twoo months after one administration.

I would advise you to look into mushroom cultivation.

 

[stolenface]

Psilocybe mushrooms do help this. I watched a special on a show called Drugs Inc. , and there was an older gentleman on there who took the mushrooms for this purpose. He didnt even like dosing but it was the only way to prevent the attacks/migraines.

 

[۩]

You can brominate some LSD and it becomes deactivated psychoactively but still treats these kinds of headaches.

 

[rjb]

Wow, thanks a lot for the responses, guys. I haven't been posting in the forums for some time now, and I'm actually surprised this thread got ressurected, but I'm glad this happened.

Now, onto responding. About LSD, I've only tried it twice, but I absolutely loved it. Had some great great times both times and felt like going outside and walking in the nature, which I obviously did. However, acid is very hard to come by in my area, so I haven't had the chance to try it again since a year ago. Plus, I don't know if it actually helps with my condition, as I didn't have pains either time I tried it. Good to keep in mind though.

Recently I've had some medical investigations and what not. I had a terrible flu a couple of weeks ago and decided to go for full exams since the pains persisted for about 1 month, daily. I've been to the eye doctor, everything is ok with my eyes, no damage there. Then I went to the neurologist, who found some unusual reflex responses, but nothing to worry about he said. He prescribed Mydocalm 150mg, one per day at night, for relieving tension, but not much else. His official diagnostic was migraines. You were spot on, corpus, I do indeed feel like withdrawing from the world for the duration of the pains. The doctor also suggested a cerebral MRI but I haven't gotten to do it yet; his reticence in finding something from the MRI was a contributing factor, but i will get it done eventually, just to rule out every possibility.

The last exam was at the doctor investigating sinuses and stuff like that. Not sure how that's called in English, I know it has to do with ears & mouth infections. She said I was predisposed to sinusitis during colds & flus because I have a (kinda) badly deviated septum. But again, she said to not worry about it very much. I do have a stuffed nose most of the time though (especially in the morning in the hour following waking up), so I'll probably have surgery sometime soon.

I also noticed that alcohol precipitated those crises. It would've been enough to have one sip of beer or wine, and the headache started. It also was longer lasting when triggered by alcohol, reason why I haven't had a drink in 2 months. Last night, I had a beer and it didn't trigger the headaches anymore, so I guess that nasty infection is out of my system, finally.

I've also tried self medicating low dose mushrooms (.5g tops) back in january & february, but only had a couple of sessions, so I'm not sure if/how much it helped. I didn't have headaches during the trips, but they came back afterwards. It seems like I don't take mushrooms as well as LSD or DMT though. I mean, I'm not as comfortable taking mushrooms compared to taking LSD for example, I don't know why that is, I had to train myself to get used to the bodily sensations induced by mushrooms and get over racing thoughts (had a couple looping trips till I got it right). They also helped me better understand a LOT of stuff in my life, therefore improving myself in a lot of ways, so I'm grateful for that and it's the reason I keep pushing. Nowadays I can deal much better with mushroom induced trips, so I'm guessing it was just my internal programming that got in the way at that time. However, I figured it'd be good to write this here, maybe it means something more than that.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

[corpus callosum]

Mydocalm aka Tolperisone is an interesting medication and Im wondering why the neurologist chose this as it has no direct effect on migraines.

MR scanning in headaches is advisable only in certain circumstances and one of these is when abnormal physical signs (including reflexes) are elicited.I would advise getting the scan done because of the choice of med and the abnormal reflexes but any anomalies which may or may not be found may not be relevant to the headaches.Less than 1% of headache patients will have a relevant finding on cranial imaging and this is why deciding who merits such an investigation requires careful consideration.The result of scanning inappropriately is finding incidental but irrelevant anomalies and this can engender unnecessary anxiety in patients.

 

[Phlux-]

microdosing mushies - seems to fit the bill

 

[rjb]

Hm, I see. Thanks for expanding on that, corpus. In this case, I'll have that scan sometimes next week and I'll let you know how it went. Also, I forgot to mention that the neurologist also prescribed Tador and Omeran, but I haven't started those yet (that's why I completely forgot to include them in my previous post). Any input on this? It seemed a little fishy to me to prescribe a stomach coater (Omeran) for a headache treatment and I wanted to get a second opinion first.

 

[corpus callosum]

That makes a bit more sense-Tador aka dexketoprofen is an anti-inflammatory pain killer and Omeran aka omeprazole is a proton pump inhibitor. The Tador can irritate the hell out of the stomach lining causing bad indigestion and heartburn; omeprazole protects against these adverse gastric effects.

The best way to use these is as follows-omeprazole followed by some solid food and then the Tador after eating; in this way the chances of it causing you bad heartburn/indigestion will be minimised.

I think these medications are best used as required rather than regularly ie only when you have the headache.The only problem I see is if you vomit with your headache in which case an anti-emetic would be very useful.

 

[WEM]

I actually had a friend at college who said he used to have cluster headaches all the time, he tried different painkillers, non-Rx and Rx alike, until he had a doctor evaluate his diet, turns out he wasn't getting enough Vitamin E in his diet, so he now takes a supplement and hasn't had a cluster headache since... I've since looked it up and found minimal correlation between Vitamin E deficiency and headaches, but he swore by it. Just be aware that Vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin (as opposed to B vitamins which are water soluble), so it is possible to take too much and overdose.

 

[purple_dye]

I actually had a friend at college who said he used to have cluster headaches all the time, he tried different painkillers, non-Rx and Rx alike, until he had a doctor evaluate his diet, turns out he wasn't getting enough Vitamin E in his diet, so he now takes a supplement and hasn't had a cluster headache since... I've since looked it up and found minimal correlation between Vitamin E deficiency and headaches, but he swore by it. Just be aware that Vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin (as opposed to B vitamins which are water soluble), so it is possible to take too much and overdose.

Olive oil is a great source of Vitamin E. Its also really good for your skin and cholesterol levels.