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A plea for help

J

JoeysDad

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Joined
Mar 12, 2009
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14
My son suffers from chronic cluster headaches. I had those many years ago and I know what he is going through. It's completely depilatory and myself had to be hospitalized on several occasions due to these. We have tried every known drug to abort these things for him and NOTHING has worked until now.

He has discovered smoking 1/4 of a joint relieves these God awful headaches. This is no joke and I'm not a kid but a parent that wants my son pain free and if it means he smoke a little pot, I'm ALL for it and 100%.

The downside is he does not want to be stoned, he just needs to THC to stop the vascular constrictions. He is using this a medical relief only and I have every reason in the world to believe this is true.

How is the best way to come down and f-a-s-t?
 
Try to get him marinol from a dr, it doesn't have the same exact effects. The only way to come down is to wait, or soon he won't mind being stoned as the psychoactive effects won't be as pronounced as in the begining. Again if THC helps get him on marinol as it isn't illegal and the effects aren't as strong. A side note: alot of people say weed helps more than marinol.
 
Thank you for that. I did some research and found this post.

"It takes over one hour for Marinol to reach full systemic effect, compared to minutes for smoked Cannabis smoking."

The problem then is that Marinol simply takes too long. When you have such pain, even minutes seem like hours. This particular type of headache has been known to cause suicides. This is not your typical hangiover headaches but intense burning sensation inside the head.

Most people have headaches from time to time, but Cluster headaches are two times or more daily when the person is in a cluster cycle. People just can't equate to the pain of these things unless the suffer from diagnosed clusters. It's not a migraine at all, we wish it was because even the worst Migraines are not as painful as clusters.
 
people have had great success treating cluster headaches with small doses of psilocybin, erowid has a few reports on it i know, i think there may even be some sort of group, but google psilocybin and cluster headaches

i wish you and your son the best :)
 
Cluster headaches. Ugh. I use to get them from age 25-40. Every 2 years in the Spring or Fall. Yet I haven't had them bad in over 10 years. I go 5 years at a time now and an episode is much milder than it use to be. From what I'm gathering Joeysdad is you use to get them too but seem to have outgrown them? I had heard they get less and less as we age and a better miracle I could not ask for. They use to wake me up 2 hours after falling asleep and just have me banging my head against a wall until it subsided. It took 2 aspirin, a tylenol, and about 150-200mgs of caffeine to make it subside. Taking caffeine in the middle of the night is horrible but relief is relief. Walking in the cold air helped too but that also was terrible at 2:00 AM. I can not say how happy I am that these type of headaches do seem to lessen as we age. I would get them every night for a period of 4 weeks until the cycle ended. I steered clear of any of the fancy meds too. But I still get scared every Spring and Fall though. The memories are still there and this post kind of brought it all back.

Unfortunately marijuana neither helped nor hindered my clusters. Although after an episode the calm after the storm effect was heightened by marijuana.

I think my only suggestion would be to not worry about the psychoactive side effects. The "stoned" state is a positive as far as I'm concerned. It is after all an expanded contemplative state of mind that is a plus for serious thinkers. Some of the greatest thinkers utilized marijuana. Ignore the propoganda about pot and look to the positives.

Saying that eating something always brought me down quick. It seemed to lighten the mental effects. Walking. Reading. Other than that the effects do last from 1-3 hours. I am interested in hearing if people utilize marijuana for ailements and have techniques for skipping over the psychological part. Me? I like that part, or at least I use to when I did partake. It is the best side effect of any substance I've ever taken. :)
 
Thanks Student. He would not take shrooms I know. He's feeling guilty as he can be over pot and unless it's a horrendous headache and no other option, he won't even do that.

The only thing we have found was a certain type of Dristan that has a vascular constrictor in it. The down side is he takes too many (sometimes 7) which is far worse than a little pot.

There used to be a drug called Sansert that I took when I was his age, but they took it off the market, then I switched to Dristan and it worked but ate holes in my stomach.

Pot works for him for whatever reason and while I would never encourage his drug use as a responsible parent, I do support his right for pain relief and support his use of drugs to achieve that means and that includes pot.

Now if he can just come down soon it might be a work around solution for there is no cure or known cause.
 
Hi Jack,

Yes, I had them too in about that same age range. I'm 56 now and they are a thing of the past, but like you, I remember them very well. One day they just stopped without me even noticing. I think I was near 30's. My son is 26 and they are gaining in intensity.

Yes, I would wake up with them, made for a very bad day. I would crush Dristan and melt them thinking that would dissolve faster. You know Jack, these things are just amazingly painful.

We have tried Caffeine in the form of No-Dose, Red Bulls and everything OTC we could try. We're members of the Cluster forums, O2 did not help either. The only way to stop this is to dilate those bloods vessels.

My son is just not much on being in a altered state anyway. Drinks some but socially most of the time. He does not like the stigma that accompanies a drug user even recreational and for that I'm grateful.

He has my full permission to do whatever it takes until such time he outgrows this and I and other family members have expressed that plainly. I will pass on your suggestions and I thank you for posting.
 
Joeys Dad, I'm very sorry to hear about the situation you and your son are in. May I ask, if you don't mind, why your son feels guilty about using psychoactive substances to relieve his pain?
 
Yes, JoeysDad, never have I had anything as painful as those clusters. I'd be brought to tears begging God to make it stop. But as I approach 50 I do believe these are a thing of the past for me too. Thank God. While not a member of the Cluster Forum I have visited. I think lately I just prefer to forget about them. Thanks for reassuring us older guys that the cycles lessen until they go away.

I feel for your son. I think that whatever it takes to get rid of the pain is going to be necessary. There is really no choice. Oddly enough opiates did not get rid of this horrible pain and would even trigger an episode during a cycle. Imagine a pain that even a large amounts of morphine can't touch but would make worse. Crazy.

The psilocybin approach did not work for me as I had found myself tripping hard while that red hot rod of pain could penetrate a trip right in the middle. For others it does seem promising.

So I believe Joey needs a method of coming down from a pot high and the question of how to do that remains. As stated, I would abstain from eating in my pot days in order to enjoy the effects. As soon as I ate the effects completely lessened. There has to be better ways though if one does not like the effects. I'm curious now too.
 
Joey's Dad, I know someone mentioned magic mushrooms above and you said no but I would ask that you just look into it. From what I've read the doses needed to help are often sub-psychedelic and do not need to be taken frequently though I have not done much research into this at all as I don't even know anyone with the condition. It couldn't hurt to look though, right? Try here if you get a chance.

http://www.clusterbusters.com/
 
@ Damien

He has a co-worker that stays baked all the time even at work. That was never his crowd in school, and while he did experiment in school (as we all did), he sees himself more as an adult now and this is in his mind not adult behavior.

He's never been in trouble of any kind, not even to the principles office even once. He's not a prude at all but has his own sense of values that he applies to his own life. If someone wants to do drugs that's up to them as far as he's concern but until recently is was not his "thing". The fact that it's illegal and he could go to jail for doing this is also worrisome.

Now he's left with little choice as we have tried the neurologist route with zero success.

Yep Jack, no shame in tears, been there. You do know don't you? Sorry that you know these. As a parent you feel so helpless, when he told me pot worked I cried tears of joy for him.

When I told him about Dristan, he told me it was the greatest gift I ever gave him. If I could take his headaches I would.
 
before i attained a tolerance to pot i would use caffeine if i ever needed to "come down," however, once you get used to the marijuana high it is *very easy* to pull yourself together and feel and act sober while still having that beautiful perspective shift and enhanced senses.
it's not so easy to control your high in the beginning though.
GL to your son.
 
JoeysDad said:
Most people have headaches from time to time, but Cluster headaches are two times or more daily when the person is in a cluster cycle. People just can't equate to the pain of these things unless the suffer from diagnosed clusters. It's not a migraine at all, we wish it was because even the worst Migraines are not as painful as clusters.
Click to expand...

Video of an attack. :(
 
I read that article on mushrooms and find it interesting. I also noted the mention of Sansert which literally saved my own life. I will read more and thank you for posting the link.
 
That video made me cry. That "was" me, same side of head, pulling at the top of my hair in just the exact same way, rolling around and whimpering. That's my son now and you now know my pain as a parent to watch this and be helpless.

Jack knows that feeling in the video too and I'm sure it will effect him too.
 
Having just experienced becoming a father I can't even imagine having to watch my child go through that. I wish you and Joey the best. Good luck and God bless.
 
I think everyone can see what my son is dealing with now. His and mine lasts about 25 mins too with treatment, but with a little pot, it's less than 5. What parent in his right mind wouldn't advocate pot when we have exhausted all other options? Not this Dad. I only hope he continues to get results until this finally goes away.
 
No one understood when I said the word headache and incapacitated in the same sentence so I would suffer all alone. I kept them a secret. I got tired of people telling me they got "migraines too". Not the same. Walking around my house or apartment at 2:00AM to get cold air for relief was horrible. I knew I had clusters and didn't need a series of tests from doctors.

That video sums it up. I feel for Joey. I am relieved to find out it it was true that they lessen with age and eventually go away. I had one mild cycle in 8 years whereas I would get them every year in the Fall or Spring.

Again, I did try sub psychedelic levels of psilocybin that didn't work for me. I am someone who liked to trip too so I was hopeful that would work. More than once on an LSD trip or mushroom trip I had that seering red hot pain when a cluster attacked ( a larger dose but just the same). Once the cycle is over it really is over. And while in a cycle these headaches only lasted about 1 hour tops. The after effect of total relief was euphoric in itself. But then going to sleep the next night was nothing short of total fear knowing in 2 hours I'd awake with that red hot pain on one side of my head.

I can not imagine someone being chronic. But there are some chronic sufferers.

I now know the hope is as we age they go away. I've heard that many times. But at 28 years old that didn't matter. Now approaching 50 I can empathize with other sufferers. Assurance they go away can probably help.
 
I use to get headaches that would make me loose consciousness, when I has a pre-teen/early teens. I don't know if they were cluster headaches though. I think they were more along the lines of migraines since I would experience perceptual distortions and then within a minute of two I would wake up on the ground.8o
I have experienced this four times, two of which resulted in unconsciousness, the other two I was able to sit down and take deep breaths and the perceptual distortions dissipated.

I have not experienced this in at least 5 years so I am thankful. Oh and no doctor was able to give me an explanation of this occurrence, they claim dehydration, standing up too fast etc., but I don't buy it.
 
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