AMN and migraines

[monkeybus]

It was our comrade, tieaknot 's comment about migraines recently that got me thinking.

I (and my mother) get "silent migraines". If you don't know, that's the migraine visual patterns, without the pain and vomiting that accompany a proper migraine.

Like an old analogue TV that isn't tuned to any channel, that's what I see when one hits. Only in one eye, and it lasts for about three hours.

Was terrifying at first. I thought I'd detached a retina or something. I was at work when it hit one time.

Googled it, and that's when I found out about cluster headaches. Blimey!

Anyway, LSD and Psilocybin terminate migraine and cluster headaches and offer remission on future ones.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/168...

And here is a good scientific report -

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

"Overall, LSD and psilocybin were reported as highly effective for both CH and migraines. Both substances were reportedly effective for prophylactic as well as acute treatment. However, according to several reports, LSD possibly exhibits even higher potential for treating CH. The therapeutic potential of vaporized or smoked DMT seemed a bit more uncertain or complex compared to LSD or psilocybin: “DMT often helps, but sometimes makes it worse.” In one case, a full dose of DMT was effective and reportedly provided lasting prophylactic effects when all else (conventional medication, LSD, psilocybin, and so on) had failed: “For the first time in years, literally, I was not waking up with migraines anymore. Something happened in my brain that day.”"

Magic mushrooms are really easy to grow. Like, ridiculously easy (and illegal, depending on where you live). There is a cluster headache support site, like AMN Easier, Clusterbusters.

clusterbusters.org/treatmen...

Plenty of regular people are growing 'shrooms as medicine. I only wish our disease could be treated so easily. These are sub-hallucinogenic doses, by the way.

You see what I am driving at here. When you need relief, nothing is off the table.

A year or so back, I was getting the migraines on a weekly basis, one eye, then the other. I was concerned that they could morph into actual, please-kill-me type migraines and I was ready to give the mushrooms a try. Then they stopped. But I fully expect them to return. If it came to it, I'll stop the migraines however I could.

Does anyone else here suffer migraines? Or regular, splitting headaches?

[julie_]

It's really interesting how often I'm hearing about migraines in AMN discussions. When I was a late teen into my early 20's, I suffered blinding migraines once a week - on Saturdays. Basically, my Saturdays were shot because I wouldn't be able to open my eyes to any light, I was nauseous and I had no appetite. I wouldn't be able to get out of the house until after 6 in the evening.

I don't recall how I found my cure/remedy at the time, especially as "google" didn't exist, but I learned that if you are susceptible to migraines, they will always be part of your make up. The thing you need to find out is what triggers them. A list of examples was given and for me it was the "weekend migraine" - an imbalance in the wake-sleep pattern: I would study/work and socialize late into the night during the week keeping an early wake schedule but on Saturday, I'd sleep in until Noon or later and that's when I'd wake up with a migraine.

mayoclinic.org/diseases-con...

After I read this, I had to see for myself if it applied to me and it did! No more weekly blinding migraines! Incidentally, I don't get jet lag. I don't get headaches when I travel over several time zones. I find this odd because of my headache history. AMN and spasticity however are a completely different ballgame.

Mind you, in the decades that followed my early 20s, I did have migraines but they are not triggered the same way. They seem to be triggered by dehydration, usually I hadn't drunk enough water during my workout the day before. I also get headaches, but I'm still able to function as if I didn't have a headache. Otherwise, I consider my migraines to be controlled.

[tieaknot]

I asked in a female AMN round table about migraines/auras and was told by docs that it is completely unrelated. I don’t believe it. I started getting them after heart surgery and they’ve been awful...(I get the visual, stroke like symptoms, and often the headache part too). I have been following research on psilocybin and Ketamine for the migraines, chronic pain, and depression and will be first in line when it is approved, but I will only do it legally in a safe controlled environment. Pretty amazing stuff!!!

[monkeybus in reply to tieaknot]

LSD was originally developed as a migraine medication.

Interesting that how, despite ours being a metabolic disease, most of the drugs prescribed hit the brain and could be considered recreational. Modafinil, Benzo's, Baclofen, Methylphenidate, Gabapentin, Lyrica.

Consider that some of us are on opiates/Soma, then, to me, micro-doses of LSD don't seem so bad. Not condoning it, mind.

Maybe no connection to AMN, but my Mum has migraines, and back pain, leg weakness. If I was a betting man, I'd say it's related. So is my tinnitus.

I only know Imitrex. Is there a decent, actually-works migraine medication?

[tieaknot in reply to monkeybus]

I haven’t found one that works yet for me. Maxalt is like Imitrex. It helps but I get chest pain with it. I went thru a bunch of preventatives and couldn’t tolerate the side effects. Concluded that NMDA receptor antagonism is what I need (to counter glutamate). I was right...turns out lamotrigine actually helped a lot and prevented my auras too (the visual and mood related migraine issues) but I got a rash and bleeding from odd places so they quickly took me off it. It is a anti seizure med and used for bipolar too (which I don’t have).

Ketamine seems to be the most promising but again not easily available. LSD scares me more than psilocybin as when I was doing psych rotations for school I encountered a teen boy who never came out from his bad LSD trip...it was terrifying!