LSD Alleviates 'Suicide Headaches'

House, MD. by paultag · 2011-06-27 17:05 · Score: 1

Saw it on House, so it must be true!

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Re:House, MD. by ehrichweiss · 2011-06-27 17:36 · Score: 2

They use ergotamine tartrate for migraines and from ergotamine you can easily derive lysergic acid.. The link is pretty clear...lysergic acid .
On top of this, I think I remember a similar study in "LSD: A Total Study" which was published a LONG time ago. I think they determined that LSD at 1/10th of a psychedelic dosage(about 10 micrograms) would perform as a great analgesic for migraines, and analesics were what Hofmann was looking for originally.
Question: Who can tell me what the "S" in LSD actually stands for?
Difficulty: No search engines... You either know this or you're guessing.

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Re:House, MD. by Montezumaa · 2011-06-27 17:43 · Score: 2

Actually, in that episode, Dr. House used psilocybin mushrooms("magic mushrooms") to alleviate the problems from the supposed cluster headaches(though it turned out to be juvenile hemochromatosis). The episode in question in s03e23, titled "The Jerk". In another episode(s02e12, titled "Distractions"), Dr. House induced a migraine headache in himself, and "short-circuited" the headache with LSD. Migraine headaches and cluster headaches are different, with cluster headaches being described as just about the worst pain a person can experience.
I actually suffer from migraines(as first diagnosed), but they have been reduced in frequency and pain through the use of fentanyl patches(though the patches were prescribed for the chronic pain I suffer, aside from the headaches). My pain clinic doctor thought I might have been experiencing cluster headaches, due to the pain, secondary symptoms, and duration, but I have never taken the time to be properly diagnosed(no insurance sucks, though I doubt I suffer from cluster headaches).
Re:House, MD. by davester666 · 2011-06-27 17:49 · Score: 4, Funny

> The episode in question in s03e23, titled "The Jerk".
Shouldn't EVERY episode of House be titled "The Jerk"? Or was this referring to someone besides House?

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Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Re:House, MD. by yarnosh · 2011-06-27 17:50 · Score: 4, Informative

"Sauer." It is German for "acid." LSD is a German acronym.
Re:House, MD. by ehrichweiss · 2011-06-27 17:56 · Score: 1

And we have a winner! You win +1 internetz.

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Re:House, MD. by pjbgravely · 2011-06-27 18:08 · Score: 2

Cluster headaches are a boring pain, usually behind one eye, but can also radiate to the ear or jaw. The hallmark of the pain is hard to stand or sit still and laying down is impossible. A migraine as you probably know is a pounding pain, that movement, light and sound makes worse.

A CH will start suddenly, will last a standard amount of time depending on the person, and leave suddenly. They usually happen at the same times every day and strike while the sufferer is sleeping. I do know people who have had remission while using fentanyl patches, even though most other narcotics are a trigger due to their vascular relaxing properties.

I hope you don't have CH but if you do get worse, there are treatments that can be done without insurance like welding oxygen and LSA/LSD.

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Star Trek, there maybe hope.
Re:House, MD. by freedumb2000 · 2011-06-27 18:08 · Score: 1

I am just curious: you have no health insurance? Where I live, I am actually required by law to have health insurance. I have not had health insurance for a while even so and I had to pay quite a bit of money to get back in.
Re:House, MD. by yarnosh · 2011-06-27 18:16 · Score: 5, Funny

There's nothing like 3 years of high school German and 5 years of taking LSD to round out an education.
Re:House, MD. by koreaman · 2011-06-27 18:38 · Score: 1

That's pretty common in the developing world, and in the United States. GP probably comes from one of those two (likely the former, since this is Slashdot)

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Re:House, MD. by istartedi · 2011-06-27 19:33 · Score: 1

Dude. I'm making that a QOTD.

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Re:House, MD. by rainmouse · 2011-06-27 19:39 · Score: 1

technically its initialisation and not an acronym, as LSD is not pronounced as a word.
Re:House, MD. by freedumb2000 · 2011-06-27 20:01 · Score: 1

My stomach cringes when I hear that. Here, the insurer is not even allowed to request information like that to sign you up. It is too bad that health care reform failed, again, recently. If I am not mistaken, this was one of the issues to be be reformed.
Re:House, MD. by MaskedSlacker · 2011-06-27 21:16 · Score: 1

First thing I thought of when I saw the headline.
Re:House, MD. by cas2000 · 2011-06-27 21:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

no insurance sucks,

I bet you're glad that you were saved from the government death lists :(
Re:House, MD. by demonlapin · 2011-06-27 22:45 · Score: 1

If they can't ask your history, then it's not so much insurance, which spreads out risk, as it is a service contract with somebody else footing the bill for a majority of your care. Having said that, states do have high-risk pools that provide government-subsidized (but still expensive) insurance to those who can't get it elsewhere.
Re:House, MD. by Affenkopf · 2011-06-27 22:55 · Score: 1

Actually the s is for sÃure not sauer. While sauer can be used for acid most of the times it just means 'sour'.
Re:House, MD. by macs4all · 2011-06-28 00:14 · Score: 2

They use ergotamine tartrate for migraines and from ergotamine you can easily derive lysergic acid.. The link is pretty clear...lysergic acid .
On top of this, I think I remember a similar study in "LSD: A Total Study" which was published a LONG time ago. I think they determined that LSD at 1/10th of a psychedelic dosage(about 10 micrograms) would perform as a great analgesic for migraines, and analesics were what Hofmann was looking for originally.
Question: Who can tell me what the "S" in LSD actually stands for? Difficulty: No search engines... You either know this or you're guessing.
Exactly.

Many, many migraine medicines contain ergot derivatives. Dr. Hofmann and his employer, Sandoz, probably have researched more ergotamine compounds than anyone on the planet. Sandoz also produces other, best-in-class compounds, such as Selegiline, which not only are incredibly effective against Parkinson's, early stages of Alzheimer's, but also seem to have some life-extension properties in humans and other mammals.

As for the "S" in LSD; I've never actually seen an answer for that question. LSD that we all know and love is actually the 25th isomer of d-Lysergic Acid Diethylamine. Beyond that, I am afraid I do not know. (Flies off bridge...)
Re:House, MD. by macs4all · 2011-06-28 00:20 · Score: 1

> The episode in question in s03e23, titled "The Jerk".
Shouldn't EVERY episode of House be titled "The Jerk"? Or was this referring to someone besides House?
IIRC, the kid with the headaches was actually the jerk. He was a brilliant kid, who happened to have a personality that most persons would call "abrasive".

And according to Dr. Wilson, Dr. House is an ass, not a jerk.
Re:House, MD. by yarnosh · 2011-06-28 01:34 · Score: 1

That's what I get for not using Google like the challenge said. :-)
Re:House, MD. by xanadu113 · 2011-06-28 01:41 · Score: 1

Good luck finding LSD in this day and age, Pickard / Apperson went down... you may find "acid" but it's probably not LSD...

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-Myke
Re:House, MD. by outsider007 · 2011-06-28 01:58 · Score: 1

I think I might still have a few sheets in the back of my freezer from the last dead tour

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Re:House, MD. by hedwards · 2011-06-28 02:18 · Score: 1

As an American, I can assure you that we really are more of a developing world country in that regards.
We also have a habit of over medicating as well. It bothers me a lot when they want to medicate things like migraines when therapy does just as well. I remember back when I'd have serious problems with migraines, there was a period where I'd have at least one a day for a period of a decade, medication doesn't work well, if at all, but therapy does work.
I don't personally have any trouble with them using this for treating headaches, but I suspect that this will be like the last time that people were using hallucinogens for medicine in that the effects won't be strongly backed enough to justify the side effects. Sort of like pot still is, an effective treatment but where smoking isn't an approved delivery method.
Re:House, MD. by GargamelSpaceman · 2011-06-28 02:20 · Score: 1

Sounds like sour... oh yeah Sauerkraut... Dood! Want some ACIDKraut on your hot dog?
huh huh huh

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Re:House, MD. by Omestes · 2011-06-28 02:49 · Score: 2

What therapy did you use for migraines? Pretty much nothing worked for them when I used to have them commonly. I also had cluster headaches for a while, and pretty much NOTHING worked on them. For migraines I used to use ketoprofen (when it was sold as little over the counter headache pills, something they pretty much stopped doing), and it sometimes took the edge off, marijuana also worked a bit. As for the clusters... nothing. Clusters are much, much, worse than migraines. If a migraine was a movie directed by Stephen Speilburg, then a cluster headache would be directed by Rob Zombie.
What type of, non drug, therapy do you suggest?
On topic, as a person who suffered both migraines and clusters, I wonder how much of my drug use was self-medication. When I was young I didn't care one bit for for most recreational drugs, but I loved LSD. The period which I used the most LSD (trying to stay on it for weeks at a time) was also the period where I had the worst cluster headaches. As they started waning, so did my use of LSD.
I, on a personal level, and happy with the idea of medicating things with marijuana, not because I care if its terribly effective, but because it opens the door to eventual legalization, which would lead to a bit of a saner view on drugs. It might be therapeutic, but I think most people who advocate legal medical usage have the same ulterior motives. That actually was an issue here in AZ on our medicalization bill, with the "war on drugs" crowd attacking the medical crowd because they were somewhat honest that they were using it as a door to eventual decriminalization. Obviously the argument had no effect, since I don't care. If we legalize marijuana whats the worse that happens? Our daughters start dating jazz musicians? (during the debates over the bill, I got yelled at by older senior citizens for pointing out that much of the historical reason for making marijuana illegal was racial, with most of those terrible jazz musicians trying to steal our daughters being black, and in AZ, the fact that we might want to hang out with those damn Mexicans... gasp!).

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A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Re:House, MD. by flibuste · 2011-06-28 03:10 · Score: 1

I suffer from recurring CH and I have found that the only thing that works for me is Zomig, but it is only used when a headache is coming, and can be used twice a day at most. People have reported some success with reducing the pain by using oxygen, but carrying an O2 bottle rarely a solution.
Marijuana doesn't actually do anything (I tried), it might even make the crisis worse because of its relaxing effect. And alcohol is a trigger for crisis so avoid it when you know you're in a period where you will get CHs (I hope you don't have the permanent kind, life is miserable with that).
Besides that, the only natural remedy I have found is endure it, and celebrate when it stops :( And not sleeping as sleep usually is what triggers mine.
Re:House, MD. by danlip · 2011-06-28 03:11 · Score: 2

Most grammar nazis I know assume that language never changes but it doesn't make them right.
Re:House, MD. by tehcyder · 2011-06-28 03:51 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm getting a cluster headache from all the *whooshes* around here

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:House, MD. by tehcyder · 2011-06-28 03:56 · Score: 1

We also have a habit of over medicating as well.
You Americans go on about medicines the way we yack about the weather in the UK.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:House, MD. by Some+Bitch · 2011-06-28 04:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Most grammar nazis I know assume that language never changes but it doesn't make them right.
I'm quite happy to accept most linguistic evolution, however people who say "could care less" instead of "couldn't care less" are, and always will be, fucktards.
Re:House, MD. by Ihmhi · 2011-06-28 05:22 · Score: 1

Wow, okay... so, I've had those before then, because that explains exactly the sort of symptoms I get a couple times a year. Thanks, now I'm going to be even more paranoid. d:

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Re:House, MD. by AragornSonOfArathorn · 2011-06-28 05:25 · Score: 1

> The episode in question in s03e23, titled "The Jerk".
Shouldn't EVERY episode of House be titled "The Jerk"? Or was this referring to someone besides House?
The jerk store called, and they're running out of YOU!

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sudo eat my shorts
Re:House, MD. by AragornSonOfArathorn · 2011-06-28 05:31 · Score: 1

We also have a habit of over medicating as well.
You Americans go on about medicines the way we yack about the weather in the UK.
You obviously haven't been to Minnesota, a state in the midwestern US. All anyone ever talks about is the weather.

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sudo eat my shorts
Re:House, MD. by CSMoran · 2011-06-28 07:28 · Score: 1

He wasn't looking for an analgesic, but rather for something to start uterine contractions. As to the second part of your claim, can you provide a citation?

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Every end has half a stick.
Re:House, MD. by pjbgravely · 2011-06-28 07:36 · Score: 1

Don't get paranoid, get proactive. My CH started light, My 10 pain level is a 5 now. Everyone thought it was sinus. Read up on the illness, and learn what you need so in case it get worse you are ready. Remember it's not called suicide headache because it is easy to live with. Email me if you want links.

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Star Trek, there maybe hope.
Re:House, MD. by dontbgay · 2011-06-28 11:28 · Score: 1

Just like you need money to make money, you need insurance to get affordable insurance?

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Re:House, MD. by Carewolf · 2011-06-29 00:28 · Score: 1

You can get some special pain-killers that work in under 15 minutes. The only problem is that cluster headaches comes in clusters several years apart, so getting your hand on the right medication when the first headache strikes again is difficult. Not sure how LSD would help except being cheaper (anti-CH pills are insanely expensive).
Re:House, MD. by pjbgravely · 2011-06-29 11:06 · Score: 1

Most of use keep oxygen on hand, which will kill it in 5 minutes. The expensive medicine is imitrex shots which will kill it in 15 min.

LSD is a preventative. Actually most use LSA. A preventative keeps the cycles from ever starting.

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Star Trek, there maybe hope.
Re:House, MD. by rtfa-troll · 2011-07-06 11:28 · Score: 1

That's a cluster bomb. A cluster headache comes from inside your head.

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Confirmed. by Frosty+Piss · 2011-06-27 17:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, I can tell you from personal experience that LSD does indeed (at least for me) help knock back "cluster" headaches. The only real problem for me was the ensuing giant insects.

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Re:Confirmed. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 18:30 · Score: 2, Funny

I found covering the walls and floor with sticky paper helps with the giant insects. Unfortunately several of my rather large stuck house guests insist on watching Fox News. I had to give it up because watching Fox News on acid really makes me paranoid.
"An update", turns out it wasn't the acid or the 6' cockroaches making me paranoid it was Fox News. That was a relief.
Re:Confirmed. by JordanL · 2011-06-27 19:44 · Score: 1

Was that a reference to Naked Lunch?

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Re:Confirmed. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 20:28 · Score: 1

Might want to have that Fox News derangement syndrome looked at.
Yes, because any disagreement or realization that something is totally screwed up is a "derangement syndrome". Perhaps you should get that "reality derangement syndrome" looked at.
Re:Confirmed. by pinkushun · 2011-06-27 22:49 · Score: 3, Funny

I was always too fucked to notice any headaches >_> So it worked, in essence!
Re:Confirmed. by CongealedSalad · 2011-06-27 23:36 · Score: 1

In my youth, I tripped on acid and shrooms countless times and in large doses and I have to call BS on the whole "I saw a giant floating shark and it chased me down the street" hallucinations. It's NOT like that at all. Now Peyote/Mescaline will have you out on a "heavy metal" style adventure in your head, while in realty you're laying in your own puke/piss/feces in the backyard.

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Re:Confirmed. by uncanny · 2011-06-28 00:17 · Score: 1

Well since you haven't experienced it, it must not be true!
Re:Confirmed. by CongealedSalad · 2011-06-28 00:36 · Score: 1

Yep. Thanks for confirming it for me.

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In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed as an Atheist.
Re:Confirmed. by Omestes · 2011-06-28 02:57 · Score: 1

I can imagine good sex being beyond epic on LSD. Not that I would get any chance to sex in the first place, though. ;)
It could be, at times. But often it required way to much engagement. When I used to take LSD (a long time ago) I was a "wanderer", the second it kicked in I had to take a walk. After that I was like some sort of very happy kid with ADD, the nearest shiny thing would completely take my attention until I saw something new and interesting (its LSD, so that would take around .0003 seconds). Sex required me to pay attention.
You also have the problem that people's faces do very, very, strange things on a decent dose. Sometimes those things are terribly flattering.
I had a friend who had a string of "hentai-esque" moments while trying to have sex on acid. Sex organs can be very scary things.
I tried it once on mescaline, but later I wasn't even sure if another person was present, or if it even happened at all. The person who I was possibly having sex with didn't remember either. It was another question mark shaped notch on my bed frame (ah... youth!).

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A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Re:Confirmed. by JordanL · 2011-07-11 12:28 · Score: 1

That movie is about so many things it's difficult to even have conversation about it.

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Barbiturates work too by gstrickler · 2011-06-27 17:13 · Score: 3, Informative

Dr prescribed phrenilin (butalbital + acetaminophen) for mine.

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Re:Barbiturates work too by geminidomino · 2011-06-27 22:08 · Score: 1

Really? My doc prescribed me Fioricet (Same thing, plus caffeine) for my migraines. Doesn't even put a dent in them... Nasty as it is, the best way I've found to deal with them is to lie in a scalding bath until I puke, then immediately take an Aleve liqui-gel.
Oddly, the puking part is not optional for the treatment to work...
Re:Barbiturates work too by geminidomino · 2011-06-27 22:50 · Score: 1

Let me ask you... does your aura effect include discomfort too, or just the blurring?
Re:Barbiturates work too by ami.one · 2011-06-27 23:08 · Score: 1

Strangely, my migraines go away just by puking ! I induce that by drinking loads & loads of water. Or, for temporary relief, i just keep walking very briskly inside the house.
Re:Barbiturates work too by macs4all · 2011-06-28 00:34 · Score: 1

Really? My doc prescribed me Fioricet (Same thing, plus caffeine) for my migraines. Doesn't even put a dent in them... Nasty as it is, the best way I've found to deal with them is to lie in a scalding bath until I puke, then immediately take an Aleve liqui-gel.
Oddly, the puking part is not optional for the treatment to work...
Puking causes a gigantic histamine release, which in turn, causes massive vasodilatation. Then Aleve (Naproxen Sodium) works as an anti-inflammatory, which suppresses histamines.

This is kind of odd. I wonder why the histamine cycling is helping. But I would suspect that is what is happening.

Next time, you can try either masturbating until climax (I assume you are not in any kind of a mood for actual sex while having these headaches!), or take a rather large dose of Niacin (which also causes a histamine release), THEN take your Aleve.

Beats puking, and is a lot easier on your brain than driving your core temperature dangerously upward...
Re:Barbiturates work too by macs4all · 2011-06-28 00:39 · Score: 1

Strangely, my migraines go away just by puking ! I induce that by drinking loads & loads of water. Or, for temporary relief, i just keep walking very briskly inside the house.
Find another way to puke!

Inducing vomiting by drinking tons of water is DANGEROUS and even LIFE-THREATENING!!!

Syrup of Ipecac is the vomit-inducing compound of choice. I think it is available without prescription at your local pharmacy.

Interesting that there appear to be multiple people who say that vomiting alleviates their migraines. I wonder if anyone has actually done a study on this.
Re:Barbiturates work too by Whomp-Ass · 2011-06-28 02:02 · Score: 1

No, They do not, not for me anyway.
The only conclusive relief I have ever been able to achieve was through oxygen therapy.
I also have an auto-injector of Imitrex which helps when I'm out-and-about...but it is **prohibitively** expensive to use.
I have used LSD to break a cycle, and it works...The problem is that I do not maintain a lifestyle where finding LSD is an easy experience, nor do the benefits outweigh the risks, though to be fair, things take on a different perception when I'm in the middle of a cycle.
Re:Barbiturates work too by hedwards · 2011-06-28 02:21 · Score: 1

Or just teach them self hypnosis. Hypnosis is bunk for many things, but it does work for pain management. With some practice you can knock any headache to nothingness in a few seconds.
Re:Barbiturates work too by Nadaka · 2011-06-28 03:07 · Score: 1

The only treatment I found for migraines was to lie down in a frigidly cold, perfectly still, quite and dark room for between 30 minutes and 3 hours.
Aleve does absolutely nothing for me, not even for "normal" pain.
Re:Barbiturates work too by mcmonkey · 2011-06-28 03:10 · Score: 1

Really? My doc prescribed me Fioricet (Same thing, plus caffeine) for my migraines. Doesn't even put a dent in them... Nasty as it is, the best way I've found to deal with them is to lie in a scalding bath until I puke, then immediately take an Aleve liqui-gel.
Oddly, the puking part is not optional for the treatment to work...
This is completely anecdotal and non-scientific, but...
I get the type of migraines that get worse and worse until I puke. Then they quickly (within minutes) go away. Ibuprofen (Advil) helps if I take 1000 mg very early when I first feel the smallest inkling of a headache coming on. After that, the best thing is either ride it out or take a percocet. Thanks to the war on drugs, I don't want to ask my doctor for narcotics or explain how I know it will help. (I've never tried a hot bath.)
But as for the LSD thing, when I was younger migraines were a weekly occurrence, going back further than I can remember. My parents say they couldn't figure out why I was frequently barfing as a baby, until I could talk and let them know my head hurt.
It got a little better at puberty, maybe to more a monthly issue than weekly. Since college, it's been more of a once or twice a year issue. (On the flip side, it's now worse when it does happen.)
Part of that may just be my body changing as I age. And part of that may be 100-or-so hits of LSD I did over a 2 year period of college. I definitely did not have any migraines during that period.
As someone on the lighter end of the headache scale, I say migraines should be a "hall pass" from any drug laws. Narcotics, LSD, whatever. If it helps the headaches, I say it should be legal.
My wife gets a little freaked when she sees how sick I get, but I have family who have it much worse--partial blindness, loud auditory hallucinations, extreme light sensitivity. Migraines are no joke.
Re:Barbiturates work too by Nadaka · 2011-06-28 03:11 · Score: 1

Next time, you can try either masturbating until climax (I assume you are not in any kind of a mood for actual sex while having these headaches!), or take a rather large dose of Niacin (which also causes a histamine release), THEN take your Aleve.
Beats puking, and is a lot easier on your brain than driving your core temperature dangerously upward...
From personal experience, the physical activity will amplify your migraine pain dramatically, so any temporary relief will at best get you back down to where you were before, but not relieve the migraine.
Re:Barbiturates work too by gstrickler · 2011-06-28 03:26 · Score: 1

Migraines are not the same thing as cluster headaches. Migraines are caused by vasodilation, and vasoconstriction is the only effective treatment. If phrenilin/fioricet relieves a "migraine", then it's not really a migraine.
I've had a few migraines in my life, but I've had far more cluster headaches. My last two episodes lasted 16/17 days, would have been debilitating without an effective treatment. Phrenilin has been extremely effective in treating my cluster headaches, and it doesn't prevent me from being coherent and continuing to work/play/etc.

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Re:Barbiturates work too by gstrickler · 2011-06-28 03:28 · Score: 1

Sounds like you have migraines, not cluster headaches. Imitrex is a vasoconstrictor, if it works, it was a migraine, not a cluster headache.

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make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Re:Barbiturates work too by gstrickler · 2011-06-28 03:35 · Score: 1

One correction, Fioricet may relieve milder migraines because caffeine is a mild vasoconstrictor.

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make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Re:Barbiturates work too by geminidomino · 2011-06-28 03:43 · Score: 1

How the hell does one find such a remedy?
25 years of trial and error. They've gotten a lot worse over the last few years and I've been vomiting more often. Before that, I would get a little bit (but only a little bit) of relief by temperature-shocking myself: soak in water hot enough to turn my skin red, then go into my dark room still wet, pump the AC to max, and put an ice pack on my face.
Re:Barbiturates work too by Onymous+Coward · 2011-06-28 06:51 · Score: 1

Are you suggesting that cluster headaches aren't vascular?

Cluster headaches have been classified as vascular headaches. The intense pain is caused by the dilation of blood vessels which creates pressure on the trigeminal nerve. While this process is the immediate cause of the pain, the etiology (underlying cause or causes) is not fully understood.

Curious... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-06-27 17:14 · Score: 1

From descriptions of the condition, it would seem to me that drugs substantially nastier and more dangerous than mere LSD would likely be quite well accepted if they demonstrated efficacy. Not being Schedule I would certainly be a convenient feature of the new compound; but even standard LSD would seem to be considerably less disabling(and rather more pleasant) than the alternative...

Re:Curious... by AtrN · 2011-06-27 17:58 · Score: 2

We're already taking the drugs "far nastier and more dangerous than mere LSD". A lot of the time they don't work and they don't work the same across all sufferers. I'm only a episodic cluster head (a lucky one) but the side effects of the meds that work for me and can stop an attack cluster are such that I prefer to ride it out without them. More info at clusterheadaches.com
Re:Curious... by berashith · 2011-06-28 01:30 · Score: 1

this is absolutely true. I rarely take the meds, and I always wait to long to start, as I absolutely hate the way they make me feel. I did take a lot of LSD in my time, and I had less headaches during the times that I was using drugs, but I never want to link those two things in definitive ways as there are far too many variables to consider.
I had some prescriptions that nearly disabled me, all I could do was sleep. I describe the choice of not taking them to my doctor as a choice of being at all useful. If my house is on fire, and I have a headache, I can get up and leave. If I am on the meds, I may just sleep through it. Given those choices, I live with pain.
Re:Curious... by i.r.id10t · 2011-06-28 03:05 · Score: 1

Yup, a friend suffers from them, and one of his triggers is narcotics. SOP for him is to hit the ER, referr them to his chart and standing orders, then hit gets hit wtih a dose of Demerol big enough to put him out long enough for the headache cycle to break. Just "a little" demerol just spawns more headaches for him.

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Back to its roots by neurosine · 2011-06-27 17:15 · Score: 1

I believe Hoffman was developing a headache cure when he stumbled upon LSD. Once he tried batch 25, he sort of digressed, understandably.

Re:Back to its roots by sg_oneill · 2011-06-27 17:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Yep. LSD is synthesized and is structurally similar to Ergotamine, which is a treatment for migranes. Hoffman was studying derivatives from ergotamine, one can safely presume he was trying to work out what about ergotamines structure causes the migrane relief, either to create a better drug, or to avoid some of the nastier side effects of ergotamine which unfortunately can be pretty savage.

--
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re:Back to its roots by RazorSharp · 2011-06-28 02:06 · Score: 1

Another side effect is miscarriage, which some ergotamines are intentionally used for. Of course, if the woman is already delivering, that wouldn't be an issue.
Personally, if I was a woman I imagine the only worse thing that could happen to me than childbirth would be childbirth on acid. I'd want something to knock me the fuck out, not something that would keep me up for the next eight hours with hypersensitivity. I'm assuming Hoffman concluded that the ergotamines were useless for childbirth pains?

--
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."

Ergot Alkaloids... by grigs · 2011-06-27 17:20 · Score: 2

...have long been used to treat migraines long before the so-called "triptans". Not surprising that LSD would work on cluster headaches (even though they are a slightly different pathology). Yes, a drug that vasoconstrict cant alleviate the pain brought on by vasodilation.

Re:Ergot Alkaloids... by societyofrobots · 2011-06-28 04:15 · Score: 1

Pain from cluster headaches are caused by vasodilation near a pain nerve in the head. LSD is a vasoconstrictor, which is why it works.
But not any more than ergotamines, caffeine, pure oxygen inhalation, or a simple ice pack applied to the head - much better options when 'drain bramage' is a concern.
(I'm agreeing with your post, just adding on to it)

Re:./ editors hoping for "five nines" by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 17:20 · Score: 1

LSD is not job-disqualifying,
Standard drug tests won't even test for it.

I'm no doctor... by devphaeton · 2011-06-27 17:21 · Score: 1

But I'm pretty sure I forgot about any sensations of my body when my bedroom stretched out and became a rollercoaster.

--

do() || do_not(); // try();

Re:Salvia D. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 17:22 · Score: 1

Hi there. We were talking about medical problems, like severe cluster headaches. That's cool that you like taking Salvia, but how does that relate to the topic at hand?

Re:./ editors hoping for "five nines" by LostCluster · 2011-06-27 17:22 · Score: 1

Good use of the AC account... because bragging about it in a published web forum is job-disqualifying.

Re:Salvia D. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 17:24 · Score: 1

Definitely a plant that should be widely cultivated, examined, and discussed among the psychonautic consciousness-expanding netliterati. The survival of the human mind may depend on it.

Dudeman, I think you need to lay off the salvia. I'm high as fuck right now and even I can tell you're wacky.

I don't know what to say by Psychotria · 2011-06-27 17:31 · Score: 2

I do not suffer from cluster headaches and can't imagine that I'd want to. If they're difficult to alleviate then I honestly feel sorry for those people and can understand doing whatever it takes to alleviate them or find comfort. Even though I do not suffer from cluster headaches I do think I can empathise with those that do, in a kind of tangential way. I take Venlafaxine (Effexor) 300mg per day. This drug is not addictive apparently (semantic smoke and mirrors I reckon because I cannot cease taking it). Anyway, I do take my dose. The problem is that I have "electric shocks" even if I miss the dose by an hour or so. I also get the "electric shocks" towards the end of every day and the basically incapacitate me. I've seen MANY doctors who don't even believe that they exist. I've even had one psychiatrist suggest that I am schizophrenic and that the "electric shocks" are some kind of delusion. I am not schizophrenic, by the way, and the "electric shocks" are not imagined. The medical profession really starts to need listening to their patients! These shocks that I am talking about are not, currently, measurable so therefore they do not exist according to most "doctors" and psychologists and psychiatrists and researchers that I've spoken to. At the same time the cannot suggest a way to get off the "non-addictive" drug they put me on. Can't get withdrawal symptoms from a non-addictive drug so they label it "discontinuation syndrome". Semantic bullshit in other words.

Anyway, the above relates to TFA because I can't see the medical profession accepting this treatment. Perhaps they don't even believe it exists.

Re:I don't know what to say by Psychotria · 2011-06-27 17:39 · Score: 1

Adding to my above comment, every single doctor except my current one has suggested to increase the dose to avoid the end of day electric shock sessions. When does that end. Every year they'd increase the dose to alleviate the so-called non-existent electric shocks (which is why I am on 300mg not 75mg). I finally had enough. If the trend continued I'd be doubling my dose every year until I was taking 3.14kg of the drug everyday just to manage the side-effects and STILL not be able to stop taking it and making it HARDER every iteration TO stop taking it. Fortunately I found that a doctor who suggested diazepam and I have that every afternoon when the shocks start. It'd be better not to have any drugs at all though.
Re:I don't know what to say by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 17:45 · Score: 1

At least in Finland "electric shock"-kind of side-effects when starting or ending an SSRI drug treatment is well acknowledged by medical professionals. My ex had them both when starting and ending taking fluoxetine.
Re:I don't know what to say by pjbgravely · 2011-06-27 17:50 · Score: 1

Sorry to hear you are getting screwed by the doctors. You are going to have to take this into your own hands, and try to get yourself off the drug. Is there any way you can take a few weeks off? You standard detoxifying methods might make if faster.

I do have CH and most of us have learned that the docs will only do so much. We need to take care of ourselves. We take 1/3 shots of imitrex as the full migraine shot doesn't work well. Sufferers have developed an oxygen mask because they existing ones did not work well. Some have used an illegal drug as a preventative, while using low doses to not get the high.

--
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
Re:I don't know what to say by kdekabalist · 2011-06-27 18:26 · Score: 1

The electric shock sensations sound like neuropathy, which SSRI's are a commonly prescribed for. I have tried SSRI's (effexor) TCA's (amitryptiline )and opiates (codeine) to alleviate mine, but have currently settled on gabapentin as being the most effective with the least side effects.
Re:I don't know what to say by Psychotria · 2011-06-27 18:59 · Score: 1

I had the "electric shock" feeling, too, coming off of Paxil. Alcohol is the only thing I trust, nowadays.. it's been around so long that you at least know it's not going to screw up your mind like this synthetic stuff.
I am not sure if your comment is a jest or not. But that's pretty much a good idea. I can stop the electric shocks by getting blind drunk. The other option, since the medical profession (at least here in Australia) does not recognise the side-effect, is to jump of a fucking cliff :)
Re:I don't know what to say by stephanruby · 2011-06-27 19:44 · Score: 1

Were your doctors idiots? A very superficial google search confirms that this kind of symptom does exist for this type of medication. If I were you, my next step would be to go to a Medical/Biology University library, and have the librarians help find you actual peer reviewed Medical Journals that talk about it. If the doctors are not going to look this up, and let's face it, they can't look up everything on every topic, there is just too much research to go through it all, you'll just have to do it yourself.
Re:I don't know what to say by muridae · 2011-06-27 20:03 · Score: 2

There's a reason that stuff gets called side-effexor. That electric shock thing is something I have felt too; I got it as withdraw pain from various SSRIs. I thought it was a pretty recognized side effect of most SSRIs. Getting the pain was, in my case, plenty of reason to switch medications since it meant I was some how going through withdrawal daily. Extended release pills can help, if you can take them.
Re:I don't know what to say by Psychotria · 2011-06-27 21:29 · Score: 1

Were they idiots? I am not sure. But they sure as hell don't recognise it as something to worry about. Maybe I will follow your recommendation and try and do this myself, but it does make me very angry.
Re:I don't know what to say by AmiMoJo · 2011-06-27 21:42 · Score: 1

I am in constant pain due to Reiter's Syndrome and am one of the people whose bloodwork and x-rays look normal, so I can understand your position. However, there is always some kind of physical evidence, in my case the fact that my joints don't move normally and feel stiff. If you get these shocks but there is no physiological aspect to them then I think you have to seriously consider that they might be psychological.
The mind is very powerful when it comes to deluding itself, and since it seems to be affected by the medication you take it may simply be that your body reacts badly to it. Medicines work differently for different people. Discontinuation syndrome is a the sort of thing you get if you go from four cups of coffee a day to none overnight, annoying and bothersome but far from the severity of actual withdrawal.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:I don't know what to say by AlexiaDeath · 2011-06-27 22:11 · Score: 1

As someone who pulled a mildly warm turkey off Effexor... Don't suggest that to someone on this drug. For me the flu like symptoms and mood swings lasted for about 4 days, vivid dreams for 2 weeks and the "shocks"/brain freezes about a month. And I took a very small dose whenever things got too bad for the first 4 days. there is only one right way to get off it and that's gradually reducing the dose. Everything else requires a babysitter. And whatever the reason for taking the meds... It will come crashing back.
Re:I don't know what to say by AlexiaDeath · 2011-06-27 22:17 · Score: 1

Been there, done that. Just don't quit on your own. I did. It was an experience to say the least. If you get shocks now... Quitting will be horror. Get your doc to subscribe you smaller doses to be taken more frequently or just take a wet finger full off a capsule when you get the shocks. It should take them right away. The med has 9h half life. Your dosage is probably not staying as stable as it should.

P.S Im not a doctor, just someone who has been there and walked the mile. And at that time the med saved my life. But getting your head sorted has a better potential of success in the long term. Therapy FTW.
Re:I don't know what to say by AlexiaDeath · 2011-06-27 22:18 · Score: 1

Just to explain. Problem with this drug isn't that it doesnt leave the system. Problem is, that it is leaving way too quickly and brain doesn't really cope well with that.
Re:I don't know what to say by swalve · 2011-06-28 00:04 · Score: 1

Yeah, same thing happens with Zoloft, but after 2-3 days. SSRI desensitizes the brain, going off resensitizes it.

Once you are in the head zaps, you might as well tough it out. Taking a small dose to take the edge off just resets the effect and you start all over again when THAT dose wears off. The bad head zaps really only last a day or two, if you train yourself to ignore them. You'll have about 4 months of the occasional head zap, which will eventually taper off.

To the guy having the evening head zaps, just take the dose twice a day. In fact, I seem to remember effexor was a 3x day drug...?
Re:I don't know what to say by swalve · 2011-06-28 00:26 · Score: 1

They are psychological. The way SSRIs work is that they desensitize the brain, so it doesn't feel so much stress. (Some types of depression being the result of stress. The classic nervous breakdown type of depression.) It is kind of like being drunk, or on a benzo. Instead of feeling anger or stress, you "notice" that something is angering or stressful, and shrug it off. (Some?) SSRIs also affect physical sensations. (In fact, when I was on some Zoloft, I had that thing happen of where you turn on a light and the light bulb "pops" and it is startling. So it went "pop" and my rational mind said "oh, bad lightbulb" and *then* I was startled. Weirdest damn thing I've ever experienced.) This is also why SSRIs also cause sexual side effects and can affect pain. It affects the sympathetic nervous system. Anyway, your brain gets used to this new normal, and when you go off the drug, it wears out before your brain can readjust to the new normal and you are over sensitized. You are basically constantly startled for a while.
Re:I don't know what to say by macs4all · 2011-06-28 00:50 · Score: 2

I do not suffer from cluster headaches and can't imagine that I'd want to. If they're difficult to alleviate then I honestly feel sorry for those people and can understand doing whatever it takes to alleviate them or find comfort. Even though I do not suffer from cluster headaches I do think I can empathise with those that do, in a kind of tangential way. I take Venlafaxine (Effexor) 300mg per day. This drug is not addictive apparently (semantic smoke and mirrors I reckon because I cannot cease taking it). Anyway, I do take my dose. The problem is that I have "electric shocks" even if I miss the dose by an hour or so. I also get the "electric shocks" towards the end of every day and the basically incapacitate me. I've seen MANY doctors who don't even believe that they exist. I've even had one psychiatrist suggest that I am schizophrenic and that the "electric shocks" are some kind of delusion. I am not schizophrenic, by the way, and the "electric shocks" are not imagined. The medical profession really starts to need listening to their patients! These shocks that I am talking about are not, currently, measurable so therefore they do not exist according to most "doctors" and psychologists and psychiatrists and researchers that I've spoken to. At the same time the cannot suggest a way to get off the "non-addictive" drug they put me on. Can't get withdrawal symptoms from a non-addictive drug so they label it "discontinuation syndrome". Semantic bullshit in other words.
Anyway, the above relates to TFA because I can't see the medical profession accepting this treatment. Perhaps they don't even believe it exists.
Electric Shocks and Vertigo (and that whole suicidal/homicidal thoughts thing) are well-documented effects of SSRI WITHDRAWAL. I would guess that there is something going on with your Effexor dosage, or the Effexor itself is defective.

Anyway, SSRIs SUCK (and are generally ineffective at treating anything but OCD), and Effexor is one of the suckiest to discontinue. I don't doubt you are having these electric shocks for one second, and anyone in the P-Doc world that does should hand in their Medical License immediately; because they are obviously both arrogant AND ignorant.
Re:I don't know what to say by b4dc0d3r · 2011-06-28 03:00 · Score: 1

Odd, I rather enjoyed that. It felt tingly for a bit, although at the time I didn't associate it with being late on a dose. And the vivid dreams - I remember when the hand of God (bright orange and obviously not corporeal) reached down and fed my friend's goldfish.
You can suffer a little every day, or you can get off of it. You got two choices. One, take a dose 1 extra hour apart every week, so if it's 6 hours then do 7 for a week, 8 the next, and so on, or 10 minutes per does, or something. Or, expect you'll feel bad and drop your dosage once a week. Or find a different doctor whoe only purpose is to get you off of it.
Bottom line, inform your doctor you want help getting off of it as quickly as possible and if s/he doesn't figure it out, either you or another professional will. Fortunately, I haven't felt like I needed to get back to it or anything like it since then, well over 5 years ago, so maybe it did help.
Re:I don't know what to say by penapoco · 2011-06-28 03:05 · Score: 1

Psychotria, I know what you are talking about (efexor 300mg per day). There may be a problem with the speed your body absorbs the medicine. Try taking "prolonged release" (don't know the exact English translation) capsules (not tablets), 150mg, twice a day. Consult your doctor: there is a way to test your absorption speed and better tune the carrier (tablets/capsules).
Re:I don't know what to say by smackmywhammy · 2011-06-28 03:11 · Score: 1

Effexor is generally considered to be a 'crisis' drug for the whacko set, not something to stay with if there are other options. It is addictive in my experience, and some withdrawal symptoms (or discontinuation syndrome or wtf ever they're labeling it today) and side effects do not go away. Ever. If you can find a way off it, I suggest it, it's wicked nasty to your liver, have your serum levels checked if you haven't. It's not unheard of for a psych 'doc' to disbelieve a patient. Keep a detailed journal, find another doc, and show them the journal. Off label scrips are not unheard of, some BP reducers are used as sleep aids, there are many others out there
Re:I don't know what to say by davidwatdavidworg · 2011-06-28 03:13 · Score: 1

Suggest to your doctor that you take Prozac for the withdrawal symptoms (the electric shocks) from Effexor. Prozac has a much longer half-life than Effexor which makes it better for tapering off of a serotonin increasing drug. Those shocks are just withdrawal symptoms.
Re:I don't know what to say by JonStewartMill · 2011-06-28 04:07 · Score: 1

Maybe they do know it's a symptom, but refuse to acknowledge it because there's nothing they can do about it?
Re:I don't know what to say by sdguero · 2011-06-28 04:29 · Score: 1

Stop taking it. Ignore the shocks and they will go away. Don't be a slave to big pharma because you have a mental hurdle.
Re:I don't know what to say by sjames · 2011-06-28 04:50 · Score: 1

What is the physical evidence that your joints feel stiff?
That's right, it's the sound of your voice saying "my joints feel stiff". Same as his voice saying "I feel electric shock sensations". It's "fortunate" for you that there is an actual limited range of movement as well since otherwise, medical science would claim there's nothing wrong and give you anti-depressants for your hypochondria.
It may be that if we could do an EEG at the individual neuron level and interpret the data, we could "find" the shocks there, but we won't be able to do that for a long time.
Re:I don't know what to say by blair1q · 2011-06-28 07:07 · Score: 1

You were going through withdrawal daily. If you had been on it for at least two weeks and that was happening, it meant your dose wasn't high enough to remain above the withdrawal level as the concentration decayed until your next dose. Your doctor ought to have at least suggested trying a higher dosage and seeing what other side effects that produced.
I was on a similar drug for a few days and decided the side effects (zaps, lockjaw, suicidal thoughts) just weren't worth it. Then I started exercising and eating real food instead of sitting on the sofa 24/7 eating butter-slathered snack-machine crap by the boxful, and all my manic-depressive shit went away (well, almost; I still get the occasional unexplainable high followed within days by a short, trancelike low, but I'm fairly sure that's correlated with weeks when I fail to get out on the road or into the gym). And so did my fat and my inability to climb stairs without pausing at the top, which was a bonus.
Re:I don't know what to say by blair1q · 2011-06-28 07:08 · Score: 1

Any doctor who doesn't believe the zaps exist hasn't even read the fucking packaging. Fire them and find a competent one.
Re:I don't know what to say by blair1q · 2011-06-28 07:13 · Score: 2

Psychology is a fancy name for subjective neurology. The zaps "exist" in your nervous system. Whether they exist in the location they appar to exist in, or only in the portion of the brain mapping to that location, is an interesting question, but does not make them nonexistent. And they are chemical in origin. They are not imagined. They are felt. I have no doubt that if a precise enough instrument were connected to the neurons involved they would detect activity that is not created by outside effectors, but is created by depolarization of axons due to the action of these weird-ass chemicals that bind and block neurotransmitters (like Serotonin, the first 'S' in "SSRI"), whether that action is excitatory or inhibitory.
Re:I don't know what to say by AmiMoJo · 2011-06-28 08:45 · Score: 1

What is the physical evidence that your joints feel stiff?
The fact that they don't move as they are supposed to. Someone else can take my hand and physically feel that they do not move smoothly and are stiff.

It may be that if we could do an EEG at the individual neuron level and interpret the data, we could "find" the shocks there, but we won't be able to do that for a long time.
We can do that with an MRI scan. We can see which parts of the brain are active when someone looks at something or hears a sound, or feels pain. It is also possible to see if that sensation is coming from actual nerves or not.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:I don't know what to say by AmiMoJo · 2011-06-28 09:10 · Score: 1

I'm not saying they are non-existent, just that if there are no measurable symptoms in the rest of the body it makes sense to treat it as neurological. As I said that is not a sign of mental illness or weakness, just the way the body works and it is treatable. Doctors should not be dismissing the problem out of hand, but it also sounds like Psychotria is dismissing neurological causes too. As other have said it sounds like classic withdrawal.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:I don't know what to say by muridae · 2011-06-28 11:52 · Score: 1

I was going through a daily withdrawal cycle. With Effexor, it took years to get to that point; other drugs took just days or weeks. However, there are tons of other reasons why a higher dose was not part of my five sentence post. For Effexor that was because, after the daily withdraw pain started, I realized that there was a multiple year gap in my memory that started when I started taking it. Taking notes about this new pain every day made me realize it wasn't new. For other medications, higher doses were not available for lots of reasons. Some caused me more side effects in higher doses, others I couldn't take too much because of other health issues.

No, everyone wouldn't want to switch medications just because they got a low blood plasma level of the drug at the same time every day. But it's a sign of a major dosing issue that someone should be paying attention to. Withdrawal levels for most of these types of drugs increase as you take increased doses, just like any addictive substance. If it happens, and the dose is increased, and after time it happens again, then it will probably happen a third and fourth time as well.
Re:I don't know what to say by sjames · 2011-06-28 12:56 · Score: 1

MRI is NOWHERE near that yet. It can broadly tell that something has stimulated some area at a gross scale, but certainly not to a degree that it could detect the odd "shock" sensations and pinpoint them down to an SSRI. There's a lot MRI can see and a lot it cannot.
And you missed it. You cited evidence that your joints ARE stiff, I asked for physical evidence that they FEEL stiff to you. What is the medical test for a sensation other than the patient reporting it, or in the case of noxious stimulation, reacting to it? Note that the latter doesn't work when the sensation comes randomly on it's own rather than being triggerable.
Incidentally, the reality of the shock sensations associated with SSRIs isn't even controversial. The medical community generally considers them to be quite real even though nobody knows why or how they happen. The necessity of tapering down SSRIs and the difficulty some have doing that is also not controversial. The appearance of discontinuation effects near the end of a dose period is also widely acknowledged as real.
Re:I don't know what to say by anomalous3 · 2011-07-02 09:50 · Score: 1

I was under the impression that Effexor withdrawal symptoms were generally accepted as being among the worst of any antidepressant, and that "brain zaps" were a common withdrawal side effect of most SSRI/SNRIs. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI_discontinuation_syndrome

Mormonism cures headaches? by Smurf · 2011-06-27 17:32 · Score: 2

Gosh! For a few seconds I got a dyslexia attack and thought that the Church of the LDS was now falling in line with the tele-evangelists.

Furthermore, it didn't seem so surprising to me that "patients suffering from the agony of cluster headaches will take anything to dull the pain," even turn to religion. Only the next sentence clued me in.

Re:Mormonism cures headaches? by phantomfive · 2011-06-27 18:57 · Score: 1

That only cures headaches caused by coffee. Unless you get them from coke, too, then you're screwed.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Mormonism cures headaches? by nitehawk214 · 2011-06-28 02:25 · Score: 1

Gosh! For a few seconds I got a dyslexia attack and thought that the Church of the LDS was now falling in line with the tele-evangelists.
Furthermore, it didn't seem so surprising to me that "patients suffering from the agony of cluster headaches will take anything to dull the pain," even turn to religion. Only the next sentence clued me in.
Sounds like you took a bit too much LDS back in the 60's at Berkley.

--
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Re:Mormonism cures headaches? by blair1q · 2011-06-28 07:15 · Score: 1

For a few seconds I got a dyslexia attack and thought that the Church of the LDS
You know, maybe Joseph Smith was a dyslexic chemistry student, himself...it would explain a lot....

Known? by NoAkai · 2011-06-27 17:34 · Score: 1

I thought this had been known for quite a while? I remember seeing something about it in a documentary once. On a related note, I cannot see any logical reason why LSD should be illegal.

Re:Known? by http · 2011-06-27 18:06 · Score: 1

One of the side effects of knowing you can't totally trust your physical perceptions for twelve hours (hence the importance of guides and saferooms) is a state of mind conducive to questioning assumptions about other perceptions as well, e.g. social cues/mores.
It's illegal because The Establishment can't afford to have genuine free thinking about some topics, and especially about The Establishment.

--
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Re:Known? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 18:50 · Score: 1

if it wasn't illegal someone might get high on LSD and accidentally the whole establishment
Re:Known? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 21:24 · Score: 1

Automatically seeing the worst possible motives for the actions of government is not free thought any more than uncritical obedience is. Playing spot-the-conspiracy doesn't mean you're standing out from the herd.
The reason that nobody wants to legalise LSD is mostly just because there's no compelling reason to change things. Making a change would be risking a lot of political support for only very minor gains. The reason it was originally made illegal was a combination of pattern matching "drugs r bad" thinking and confusing results on tests of side effects. Incompetence, not malicious conspiracy.
Re:Known? by kjzk · 2011-06-28 00:12 · Score: 1

It's a Schedule 1 along with THC which according to the federal government, has no known medical benefits. Everyone knows that's bullshit.
Re:Known? by swalve · 2011-06-28 00:29 · Score: 1

Bullshit. The trouble starts at the first half of the first sentence. The government doesn't want to be in the business of making something that completely warps perception legal. The government shouldn't really be in that business at all, but if they are going to be, they for sure can't make something that nuts legal.

On a related note by Normal+Dan · 2011-06-27 17:40 · Score: 1

Has anyone else been experiencing more/stronger headaches lately? I've been having a lot more lately, and it seems I've notice other people with them as well (more than usual).

--
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com

Re:On a related note by AtrN · 2011-06-27 19:23 · Score: 1

Southern hemisphere here. Left side episodic cluster head of about 17 years. I sense no difference this year. My other pretty regular run of winter clusters seem to have come a little early this year. But they're milder.
Re:On a related note by stephanruby · 2011-06-27 20:00 · Score: 1

No, not me, and not anyone around me (at least I don't think).
There must be a cluster of headache sufferers where you live. Either that, or there may be an abnormal number of red cars driving around your area. Personally, I find that seeing red cars gives me headaches, but thankfully I've been lucky, I haven't seen many red cars lately.
What about you? May be, you should keep a car color journal or something, and report back here in a couple of days.
Re:On a related note by pinkushun · 2011-06-27 22:47 · Score: 1

Have you been eating much of radioactive fish lately?
Re:On a related note by PPH · 2011-06-28 01:59 · Score: 1

Windows 7 SP1 is out.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
Re:On a related note by BJ_Covert_Action · 2011-06-28 06:00 · Score: 1

I'm noticing a lot more folks that are high strung and on edge lately. A lot of that seems to come from a general depression/disenchantment with the whole economy-crash, government-keeps-sucking, natural-disasters, no-hope-no-change attitude that has permeated the majority of the populace (at least in the U.S.). That kind of extra stress and jitter can lead some folks to have more headaches. I find that a cup of coffee with a shot of whiskey in it is the best way to alleviate such worries.

--
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!

Re:Salvia D. by yarnosh · 2011-06-27 17:42 · Score: 1

Done salvia twice. Wouldn't do it a third time. The only way I can describe it is being swept under a rug with no hope of anyone ever finding me again. Also, the idea of being a dried piece of gum on the bottom of someone's shoe comes to mind. Oh, and make sure you have someone to take the pipe out of your hand.

Re:Salvia D. by dimovich · 2011-06-27 17:51 · Score: 1

Well, he specified that "[...] in lesser amounts simply anti-depressant, breaks through everyday fears and anxieties [...]". So I think it's pretty relevant to our discussion.

Re:Not even news... by G-forze · 2011-06-27 18:31 · Score: 1

It even got an episode on House "The Jerk".

That was shrooms.

--
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

Not news by DarkIye · 2011-06-27 18:40 · Score: 1

Nor regarding the shrooms.

--
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH

Re:Salvia D. by DNS-and-BIND · 2011-06-27 19:34 · Score: 1

Anyone who describes himself as "psychonautic consciousness-expanding netliterati" needs to be sterilized. Have you reproduced yet? We can only hope not.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:./ editors hoping for "five nines" by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2011-06-27 19:40 · Score: 3, Funny

This story begs for a rewite... could we at least have a hyperlink for science habit? Anybody check his user number? Timothy claims he has unknown sources... or hiding his own job-disqualifying problems?

You do realize that Timothy's last name is Leary, right? He's writing based on first-hand knowledge.

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Riboflavin (vitamin B2) might help too by Rashdot · 2011-06-27 19:48 · Score: 2

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15257686

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I managed to remove a patient from Effexor safely. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-06-27 20:29 · Score: 1

ie we moved the patient to Prozac first and then gradually detitrated her from the Prozac , this reduces the discontinuation syndrome to a whisper in her case..

Discontinuation syndrome is tolerated as it encourages patients to take their meds.. assholes!!!

the psychiatrists know of this effect when they prescribe Effexor.. fucking bastards

Tricyclics and SSRIs both exhibit this effect to a greater or lesser degree ,

AC

Old news by UbuntuniX · 2011-06-27 22:04 · Score: 1

This has been known for a very long time. Seriously?

Re:As usual, Americans ignore the Cause of migrain by geminidomino · 2011-06-27 22:19 · Score: 1

Nice rant. Might have made more sense if you hadn't chosen to troll about a condition the causes of which are unknown. Triggers != Causes.

2/10. Try harder next time.

Re:Salvia D. by dirty_ghost · 2011-06-27 22:36 · Score: 1

settle down, Adolph

Do I have a problem? by DeathElk · 2011-06-27 22:41 · Score: 1

My mother-in-law is coming to visit. Pass the acid. And the coke. And the smack. And the booze. And the acid.

Re:Balanced activity by DeathElk · 2011-06-27 22:52 · Score: 1

Wow, my keyboard is pulsating...

Re:Salvia D. by TrentTheThief · 2011-06-27 22:52 · Score: 1

The Home Depots in my area sell it in little pots.

Re:Salvia D. by TrentTheThief · 2011-06-27 22:53 · Score: 1

The Home Depots in my area sell it :-)

Three things by FrootLoops · 2011-06-27 22:53 · Score: 1

1. If 2-bromo-LSD and regular LSD have similar effects, shouldn't there be a very large number of sufferers who have had success with LSD, and wouldn't this have generated a previous study?

2. If they're called "suicide" headaches, are there documented cases of them causing suicide? (The Wikipedia article didn't list any, though the condition sounds horrific enough to cause it.)

3. Did anybody else think of the Star Trek TNG episode where Riker gets a headache, and Crusher mentions something about headaches being very abnormal in that time period? Am I remembering it right?

Re:Salvia D. by TrentTheThief · 2011-06-27 22:54 · Score: 1

Idiot fingers conspire with sleepy mind to click the wrong reply to this.

LSD is wonderful by Swampash · 2011-06-27 23:11 · Score: 1

Some of the best most thought-provoking and introspective experiences of my life were on LSD. Nothing bad to say about the stuff.

Side effects by davidbrit2 · 2011-06-27 23:33 · Score: 1

Side effects may include clown vomit and monkey rain.

Schedule 2 please by Internetuser1248 · 2011-06-27 23:50 · Score: 1

So now the US government has to take LSD off Schedule 1 on the controlled substances list. Mind you they should have taken it off in the 1960's when it was shown to be usable in the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction. They should have taken cannabis off schedule 1 ages ago as well when medical uses for that were acknowledged in some states. But they don't, so cocaine, opium, and methamphetamine users get less jail time than cannabis users. That seems fair.

Anyone need further evidence that the war on drugs is not about health, safety or the public good?

Re:Schedule 2 please by black+soap · 2011-06-28 01:08 · Score: 2

Schedule 1 is political.

This is news? by portraitofsanity · 2011-06-27 23:57 · Score: 1

Other than the use of the brominated non-psychoactive analog of LSD to combat the headaches, the potential of the ergot derived drugs in helping with both migrane and cluster headaches is nothing new and has been explored in the literature (a lot of common migrane drugs out there are related to LSD). The thing that would actually be news would be if the DEA rescheduled LSD to make experimentation easier (getting a schedule 1 DEA license for research is next to impossible (schedule 1 by definition has no legitimate medical use), and even though not active at the doses they're giving for the headaches, I'm willing to wager a high enough would. The identical molecular scaffold and effects would push it under the analog drug laws, making the derivatives illegal without a license to world. Multiple components in hallucinogenic mushrooms have also been rumored (possibly confirmed, I haven't looked through pub med) to help substantially with migraine pain with one dose eliminating pain for 6-12 months. The mechanism is speculated to be something to do with certain 5-hydroxytyrptophan receptors (both LSD and certain alkaloids from mushroom have a base structure of tyrptamine IIRC)

Old News by kjzk · 2011-06-28 00:00 · Score: 1

It has already been proven decades ago that magic mushrooms and LSD relieve cluster headaches. Good Day.

Re:I managed to remove a patient from Effexor safe by swalve · 2011-06-28 00:16 · Score: 1

I've heard about moving to Prozac for this too. Might be something to try.

Re:As usual, Americans ignore the Cause of migrain by deathlyslow · 2011-06-28 01:00 · Score: 1

I had to look twice to make sure it wasn't our resident chiro-quack, but it didn't mention subluxations once. I need to actually do some work I think.

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Another perfect example... by jlutes · 2011-06-28 01:15 · Score: 1

Has anyone else noticed that many substances declared as illegal by the US government have been found to have very valuable medical benefits? Alcohol was once prohibited and now you'd be hard-pressed to find a cardiologist who wouldn't suggest a glass or 2 every day for heart health. LSD, cannabis, and even shrooms are very low in toxicity and don't destroy your liver and/or kidneys like most prescription pain meds will.

Migraine by DrYak · 2011-06-28 01:27 · Score: 1

Puking causes a gigantic histamine release, which in turn, causes massive vasodilatation. Then Aleve (Naproxen Sodium) works as an anti-inflammatory, which suppresses histamines.

This is kind of odd. I wonder why the histamine cycling is helping. But I would suspect that is what is happening.

One of the main potential explanation about how migraine work has to do with Vascular spasms. It's rather well known and described in the scientific literature.
Anything which can affect vascular constriction might help fight the migraine.
- Caffeine is a good example (beta-mimetic, cause peripheral blood vessel constriction)
- In fact serotonin might play a role in migraine. It's a vaso-active chemical. And it's targeted by several drugs : the whole family of tryptans, or LSD like mentioned here, or commercial derivate of it (like ergotamines).

Next time, you can try either masturbating until climax (I assume you are not in any kind of a mood for actual sex while having these headaches!)

Sex is also well known and described in the literature as a way to fight migraine. Probably due to the massive cocktail of monoamine chemicals released into the brain during sexual activities.

--
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]

Re:Migraine by arcsimm · 2011-06-28 14:38 · Score: 1

I get migraines, but I'm lucky in that they're very occasional and very mild. I would have a hard time telling them from a regular bad headache but for the fact that I get textbook visual auras about an hour before they hit. So, when crazy glowing stairsteps start oozing across my field of vision, I just take a few Advil with a 20oz Coke chaser and lie down with the blinds closed for a few hours.

I smell patents. by DrYak · 2011-06-28 01:39 · Score: 1

Except this time it's not plain vanilla LSD like done for ages. It's 2-bromo- LSD. I smell a new drug being commercialised very soon.

Some pharma company going through the same usual stuff :
1. Take a public domain drung known to work
2. change the structure somewhat up until the point where the new structure is patentable.
3. ...
4. Profit !

(3 = usually it actually involves testing the new molecule as in TFA).

There's some commercial company mentioned in the Abstract. It might indeed be the case.

--
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]

Already known?? D.H.E. 45 by stickystyle · 2011-06-28 02:15 · Score: 1

I thought this what already a known thing about LDS/LSA, perhaps this is just another type of headache they have found it helps? D.H.E. 45 is a medication that pretty much stops headaches dead (while your having one), it is an ergot alkaloid and ergot is a precursor to LSD/A

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Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate

Some things use to be legal by p51d007 · 2011-06-28 02:40 · Score: 1

LSD, Oxycontin, sudafed, cocaine, some of the drugs that use to be prescribed, or used on a routine basis, until the "drug culture" found out that by tweaking them, melting them into a liquid, smoking them in a pipe, you could get "high". Prescribed CORRECTLY, they could cure a lot of symptoms. Yes, some are highly addictive, but they did have benefits years ago.

Lots o' Caffeine by jdbannon · 2011-06-28 02:40 · Score: 1

Massive amounts of caffeine are often effective for me. I take Excedrin Migraine (mostly caffeine) and then chew coffee beans or drink several cans of soda. If I can do this immediately when the aura starts, pretty often I'll avoid the headache. Still end up just a bit "off" for days though.

Re:Salvia D. by JonStewartMill · 2011-06-28 03:59 · Score: 1

Definitely a YMMV situation here. I found the effects of Salvia divinorum to be decidedly unpleasant. The best thing I can say about a salvia high is that it's over quickly.

oh ho ho ho by rdpratt · 2011-06-28 04:58 · Score: 1

I used to get migranes all the time. I'm not sure if "cluster headaches" falls into this category, but after tripping the first time on LSD in high school I never had them again. I also didn't turn into a mumbling and nonsensical piece of shit afterwards either. I'm glad drugs like LSD are beginning to be seen in medical experiments. After they were banned in the 60s many experts became upset because of the positive results the drug was showing in trials, regardless of it's prominence as a recreational drug.

Years old by sjames · 2011-06-28 05:03 · Score: 1

We've known for years that psilocybin and LSD could do that with a single dose for several years now, but our legislatures would much prefer that people other than them suffer in unspeakable agony that alter their precious drug laws.

It's good that there is research into a non-hallucinogenic that can help them, but thousands will die (more than the death toll of 9-11) while they put this through the relevant drug trials. I'm guessing it'll cost far far more than the equally effective street drugs.

Re:As usual, Americans ignore the Cause of migrain by Ohrion · 2011-06-28 05:26 · Score: 1

Oh wow, that's funny, 'cause I did the same thing!

non-hallucinogenic LSD analog? by Joe+Snipe · 2011-06-28 05:44 · Score: 1

What are the other side effects of LSD, besides that?

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Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...

Re:non-hallucinogenic LSD analog? by WormholeFiend · 2011-06-28 06:53 · Score: 1

It makes a lot of people who have never taken LSD go crazy at the mere mention of its name

attention all fucktards by Eponymous+Hero · 2011-06-28 07:19 · Score: 1

hey fucktard, listen up!

the complete phrase is "I could care less, but it's not worth the effort." later shortened to "I couldn't care less." both are valid, one just assumes you're familiar with the phrase. i'm going to adopt your high standards and declare that anyone that doesn't know that is, and always will be, a fucktard.

another phrase you are probably embarrassing yourself by saying:

"the road to hell is paved with good intentions." samuel johnson's actual quote is simply, "hell is paved with good intentions." some fucktard added the "road to" part.

also, all you grammar nazis should report the following to your fuhrer:

1. irregardless means the same thing as regardless (and yes, it is a word)
2. inflammable means the same thing as flammable
3. you will never catch them all, because you are the type of person whose brain throws a blue screen of death when the syntax used requires the listener to evaluate the meaning, or in other words, listen. basically you are about as intelligent a human being as a computer that chokes on a missing semicolon. you are fit only for taking orders, and you can't even do that right failing any kind of mental acuity at all.

DIAF, kthxbai

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Re:attention all fucktards by alexo · 2011-06-28 10:45 · Score: 1

the complete phrase is "I could care less, but it's not worth the effort." later shortened to "I couldn't care less." both are valid, one just assumes you're familiar with the phrase.

Actually, no.
The earliest mention of the phrase you refer to is found in an anonymous post to the Turbobricks forum, which goes: "I could hardly care less what racers and streetracers do to and with their cars...[I could care less; bit it's not worth the extra effort it would require for me to achieve that level of caring less]".
Not only that the expression significantly postdates "couldn't care less", it explicitly references it.

i'm going to adopt your high standards and declare that anyone that doesn't know that is, and always will be, a fucktard.
And you will be wrong, unless you can show some evidence for your claim.

another phrase you are probably embarrassing yourself by saying:
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions." samuel johnson's actual quote is simply, "hell is paved with good intentions." some fucktard added the "road to" part.
As long as doesn't attribute the saying to Johnson, John Ray or Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, I'd say the usage is valid. It has a somewhat different meaning than the "correct" quote but it is close and legitimate in its own right.

irregardless means the same thing as regardless (and yes, it is a word)
inflammable means the same thing as flammable
It is true that language evolves, but usually that evolution is beneficial -- it allows people to express new concepts in a more meaningful, precise or concise manner (e.g., "goggle it" is preferable to "look it up on the world wide web"). Incorrect usage that becomes common among those that do not know better does not make the language better.

because you are the type of person whose brain throws a blue screen of death when the syntax used requires the listener to evaluate the meaning, or in other words, listen
Consider using the "regular" forms for the benefit of people who are not as familiar with the English language like you are.
Take me for example, English is my third language. While my brain does not throw a BSOD on encountering an incorrect phrase or bad grammar, it does raise an interrupt, and the resulting context switch (while I figure out what the person meant) interferes with the smooth flow of reading or conversation.
In other words: we took the trouble to learn your language so you can understand us; please do us the courtesy of using it correctly so we'll have less trouble understanding you.
Re:attention all fucktards by alexo · 2011-06-28 10:55 · Score: 1

Apologies for messing the blockquote tags.

It seems that Viagra does too by WindShadow · 2011-06-28 07:44 · Score: 1

I have seen several articles lately (Example) suggesting the Viagra is useful in some people for fighting migraine and similar headaches. I don't know if old age or biofeedback was my solution, but I'm sure before I found relief I would have tried almost anything.

News? by nog_lorp · 2011-06-28 08:26 · Score: 1

LSD and Psilocybin have been known for decades to be the most effective treatments for cluster headaches as well as migraines. You may be familiar with previous headache drugs like Imitrex. This family of drugs are in fact all analogs of the aforementioned hallucinogens.

Now if the motherfuckers would just let us take the effective form, rather than a shitty derivative that I immediately develop resistance to, I could avoid spending 72 hours each month in horrible pain, vomiting away my teeth and cardiovascular health.

Rather Expected by F.Minusia · 2011-06-29 04:48 · Score: 1

Even ergotamine derivatives used for migraine are 'structurally similar' to LSD.

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