13 ms·

I had chronic migraines so bad 4 days out of every week I could not drink water or eat food. I'd puke from the pain. I could barely think straight and in the

I had chronic migraines so bad 4 days out of every week I could not drink water or eat food. I'd puke from the pain. I could barely think straight and in the rarest of situations my mind would pass out from the pain. Migraine medicine and other kinds of medicine I was given did not work at the time, so thinking they might be cluster headaches I turned to 4-aco-dmt, which is psilocin without the psilocybin, so no stomach nausea, but a bit weaker. It didn't stop a migraine once it had started, but it did work as a preventative. I did a little bit larger than a microdose once a week and had no pain, no migraines, no problems, for quite a long time. (A regular full sized dose I could take once every 12 days without migraines.) I turned to 4-aco over mushrooms, because it was legal at the time, and no nausea. I believe it's still legal today, but I haven't kept up. Today, mushrooms are legal/deregulated in parts of the US, including where I live, so it's less of a concern. Today I have a prescription medicine that works. I'm cognizant of taking a single drug for too long. When I look up what I'm currently taking (sumatriptan) people online complain it stops working at 7 years of use. This is great, because now I feel comfortable taking it for 5 years before needing to switch. However, the second I start needing more to function, I'm switching it out. I do not want a life long resistance. That needs to be avoided at all cost. When I was taking the 4-aco I was a bit more cautious, because I can't find online how long it works for migraines. I would rather keep it in my back pocket if I ever need it again, so I went off it the second I found a prescription drug that worked, despite that the 4-aco worked better.

electriclove 6y ago
I tried a sample of sumatriptan once and my head/mind felt so clear. I've been able to manage without prescription meds but have always wondered if normal people felt like that all the time.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Not for me. It's the opposite. The first two hours after I take it are a come up. My symptoms are different each time I take it: Sometimes I'm half cognizant at that time, sometimes normal. Sometimes I get very sleepy and want to take a nap. Sometimes it makes me feel like I have low blood sugar during the come up and I start mildly shaking needing to eat something. Sometimes an arm or my arms will go to sleep during the come up, which happens to me on lsd (but not mushrooms) as well. But once the come up is over, usually within an hour and a half, I feel completely normal like I took nothing. I'm probably abnormal. I imagine if you take it while you do not have a migraine you'll get a mild heightened experience that may or may not be noticeable. It is, after all, a triptan. Oddly, 4-aco always made my mind feel clear the way you're describing. A bit more awareness, a bit more clarity. On 4-aco I wouldn't notice much or any come up. It was just the effects from the drug getting stronger over the first hour.
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  Interesting. Sumatriptan makes me really loopy and slurs my speech. It can also make my jaw ache really bad, which is usually a sign it's working (it has about a 50% success rate for me). I often think that it works by moving the pain from my brain into my jaw. I never really feel great after taking it, but I'll happily deal with the effects over a migraine any day.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    Have you been checked for TMJ / teeth grinding? It's a common cause of migraines.
    - orthecreedence 6y ago
      I have an obnoxious clicking in my jaw whenever I chew, but other than that I don't have TMJ as far as I know. I do grind my teeth, but it's sporadic and stress-related rather than a constant thing. I haven't been able to correlate actual jaw tension, teeth grinding, and migraines in any meaningful pattern. I'd say a good 60-70% of my migraines are due to some mix of brightness, hunger, thirst, exercise, sleep, and stress. Another 10% alcohol, and the rest is random: "Here's the migraine you ordered! Oh, you didn't order one? Well here it is anyway, enjoy!"
      - proverbialbunny 6y ago
        Thankfully there are specialists that can help with that.
- abnercoimbre 6y ago
  That clarity is definitely a thing for me. It's useless because I get dizzy and nauseous once the migraine fizzles. Don't get me wrong, I 110% prefer the dizzy over Satan piercing my brain with a trident.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    I'm sorry to hear that. It could be an inner ear issue. Sinuses are I believe the most common cause for migraines. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a process to clean out the inner ear. I met someone once who would get dizzy from time to time from her inner ear and it was just a condition she lived with.
    - abnercoimbre 6y ago
      I have indeed suffered from sinuses. I'll mention it to my physician. Also thanks for your top comment about avoiding life-long resistance -- you've been super helpful all around!
      - proverbialbunny 6y ago
        Aww thanks. <3
zaroth 6y ago
I’m so glad you found something that works. My wife is perhaps in the early stages of this journey. What started as “bad headaches” once a week has, over the last six months, graduated into serious migraines where she can’t leave a pitch black room for most of the day. They seem to cycle intensity where they are much worse 2 weeks out of 4. She’s on nortriptyline daily with sumatriptan taken during episodes, but which is only partially effective after the 2nd or 3rd dose and about 5 days a month basically totally ineffective. It’s fucked up that the human body is capable of causing itself so much pain over an ailment we can’t even identify in any test or scan. It’s completely debilitating. If it was for myself I would absolutely experiment with psilocybin or mushrooms in search of a treatment, but her personal history just isn’t conducive to anything remotely hallucinogenic without a very highly experienced guide in the best of circumstances.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Some things that helped me massively: Despite having 20-20, I would get eye strain and I could not differentiate it between a migraine and eye strain. Worse yet, eye strain lasts for days just like a migraine. Switching from a 1080p monitor to a 4k monitor with a reasonably low dot pitch, minimizing video game playing, and hunching (looking at a laptop screen, looking at a cell phone), helped me massively. Oh and blackout curtains are a godsend if the sun rises or sets in the general direction of the room you're staying in. I went to a chronic pain clinic, and I was glad I did. When you lay in bed too long (especially when females do) the muscles deteriorate and this in itself causes chronic pain that can at times be difficult to distinguish from a migraine. I had to go to a physical therapist and it helped tons. A pain clinic will prescribe antidepressants, because they often will work for all kinds of chronic pain, including migraines, but sadly for me they only worked about the first month and then became ineffective. However, I did learn from that the best anti-depressants and anti-anxietiants in the first world outside of the US (because pharmaceutical companies can't make a profit off of it) are RIMAs [1] and are absolutely worth perusing if you have depression. Out of pocket they're about $20 a month, and they can help with pain too. And on top of all of that, turns out I get migraines from allergies. I'm unfortunately highly allergic to every grass and tree allergy allergists test and a few of them cause migraines for me. Second, I'm allergic to soy which causes a severe migraine response, so I'm constantly cautious. It was an allergist of all people who helped me get on the right migraine medicine. The allergist I went to dubs himself an allergist when other allergists fail, and does food allergies too. Unfortunately, my allergies haven't gone away, but at least I know a cause for my migraines. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide
smcleod 6y ago
I used to take Sumatriptan, it was a life saver if you got onto it quickly. As I've got older I've had them less and less so no longer need to take it - but I do recommend people having regular migraines to speak to their Doctor and mention it.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  >I used to take Sumatriptan, it was a life saver if you got onto it quickly. It's the opposite for me. If I take it too early into the migraine it sometimes doesn't work. I will intentionally sit with the migraine for around an hour, or until it gets bad enough, then take sumatriptan and wait the 1h30m to 2 hours for the pain to go away. 2-3 hours of a headache is far better than a day of a full on migraine. Once I take it and it doesn't work it builds up resistance for at least 12 hours, so I'm stuck. I'll take the headache.
  - aaronblohowiak 6y ago
    Wow, amazing how varied people's responses to these things are! If I wait too long to take a triptan, its effectiveness reduces quite a bit. I generally try to arrest the migraine with ibuprofen but then take the triptan if it progresses.
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      Yep. At this point we shouldn't be thinking of a migraine as a singular thing. Sure, singular symptoms, but there are so many different varied causes and conditions that it can not be a single illness. Sometimes when migraine medicine does not work for me, it's because it's a headache not a migraine. I have some over the counter "migraine strength pain killer" pills which are acetaminophen, asprin, and caffeine, which works most times the migraine medicine does nothing.
  - cameronh90 6y ago
    That sounds oddly curious to how psilocybin resistance works. With mushrooms, you have to take the entire dose at the outset. As soon as you can feel it, you now have a strong resistance and any further dose will have a greatly diminished effect.
gohokies 6y ago
I havent seen anyone mention it yet in the thread but if you can get your insurance to cover Emgality, give it a shot. Its a brand new peptide thats only been on the market for 2 years~. This is the first year I have been able to basically completely abate all pain derived from my cluster headaches (had them yearly at the same time for 5 years) by taking the injection (just) before onset of a cycle. Psilocybin never did much to effect cycle length or pain level for me, and the triptans have some of the worst side effects I have ever seen personally, in a drug. /anecdota
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  For anyone else who is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcanezumab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcanezumab Thank you.
soulofmischief 6y ago
Unfortunately, it became illegal around a decade ago. However, the ability to precisely measure a dose is a huge benefit over traditional mushrooms. Anecdotally, I have a friend who experiences chronic cluster headaches and low mushroom doses were the first thing in 20+ years which they said just worked, and well, without any negative side-effects.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  It was a decade ago when I was using it, but still I wanted to verify so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Acetylpsilocin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Acetylpsilocin It says in the US it's still unscheduled. ^_^
  - 3131s 6y ago
    Unfortunately not really, as 4-AcO-DMT would definitely fall under the Federal Analogue Act. And if you order it in the mail (as is common with "research chemicals") they'll tack on charges for mail fraud and trafficking across state lines.
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      That's what I meant by legal, unscheduled. Technically they don't go after buyers for unscheduled drugs. If you buy in bulk large enough that they suspect you're a seller, but don't have any reports of you being a seller they'll give you a love letter which is, "We confiscated your package. Don't do it again." and that's the max penalty for buying 4-aco in the US. If a law is unenforced in the US, it is legal. To prove it is enforced if they ever want to go after sellers, they have to capture multiple sellers at once in bulk to prove there is no bias. The legal system is interesting in the US, isn't it? Also, where I live (Oakland) it's totally outright legalized, so no problems.
      - soulofmischief 6y ago
        Oakland is one thing, but unscheduled doesn't mean much. That's the point of the federal analogue act and I remember exactly when it started being applied to tryptamine-based research chemicals around 2010. There are too many subtle chemical variations to take the time to put them all on the books directly, they are covered with the act. We can talk theory and everything, but I've seen people get arrested and charged for both possession and procurement, so.
krrrh 6y ago
If you can’t get 4-aco but have access to mushrooms, search around for “lemon tek”, or “blue juice” cold water extraction. It can get you the psilocybin/psilocin without the body effect of chewing on mushrooms. Still not as easy to dose precisely as pharma grade, but don’t discount the entourage effect which could be as rich an area of research over the next few years as cannabinoid research is now.
jwmoz 6y ago
Any idea why you were getting them? I also had 2 months of migraines and headache issues recently and don't know why. Sumatriptan saved my life.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Yah, I wrote about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25192775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25192775
BatteryMountain 6y ago
Random question: did you or still do consume caffeine? If so, how much?
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Migraines and caffeine are not correlated, with rare exception like a food allergy to caffeine, coffee, or milk. However, tension headaches and caffeine are strongly correlated. I don't drink much in the way of caffeine. When I drink coffee I drink decaf. I also drink decaf tea sometimes. I also drink irregularly. I'll go a week or two without any decaf or anything and then another week drinking six cups a day.
beauzero 6y ago
My wife and daughter both had the inner ear piercings have been migraine free. One for a year now and the other for 2 months. We will see how long it lasts. Daughter was a migraine every 1-2 weeks and wife was 2-3 a week.

electriclove 6y ago

I tried a sample of sumatriptan once and my head/mind felt so clear. I've been able to manage without prescription meds but have always wondered if normal people felt like that all the time.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
Not for me. It's the opposite. The first two hours after I take it are a come up. My symptoms are different each time I take it: Sometimes I'm half cognizant at that time, sometimes normal. Sometimes I get very sleepy and want to take a nap. Sometimes it makes me feel like I have low blood sugar during the come up and I start mildly shaking needing to eat something. Sometimes an arm or my arms will go to sleep during the come up, which happens to me on lsd (but not mushrooms) as well. But once the come up is over, usually within an hour and a half, I feel completely normal like I took nothing. I'm probably abnormal. I imagine if you take it while you do not have a migraine you'll get a mild heightened experience that may or may not be noticeable. It is, after all, a triptan. Oddly, 4-aco always made my mind feel clear the way you're describing. A bit more awareness, a bit more clarity. On 4-aco I wouldn't notice much or any come up. It was just the effects from the drug getting stronger over the first hour.
orthecreedence 6y ago
Interesting. Sumatriptan makes me really loopy and slurs my speech. It can also make my jaw ache really bad, which is usually a sign it's working (it has about a 50% success rate for me). I often think that it works by moving the pain from my brain into my jaw. I never really feel great after taking it, but I'll happily deal with the effects over a migraine any day.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Have you been checked for TMJ / teeth grinding? It's a common cause of migraines.
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    I have an obnoxious clicking in my jaw whenever I chew, but other than that I don't have TMJ as far as I know. I do grind my teeth, but it's sporadic and stress-related rather than a constant thing. I haven't been able to correlate actual jaw tension, teeth grinding, and migraines in any meaningful pattern. I'd say a good 60-70% of my migraines are due to some mix of brightness, hunger, thirst, exercise, sleep, and stress. Another 10% alcohol, and the rest is random: "Here's the migraine you ordered! Oh, you didn't order one? Well here it is anyway, enjoy!"
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      Thankfully there are specialists that can help with that.
abnercoimbre 6y ago
That clarity is definitely a thing for me. It's useless because I get dizzy and nauseous once the migraine fizzles. Don't get me wrong, I 110% prefer the dizzy over Satan piercing my brain with a trident.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  I'm sorry to hear that. It could be an inner ear issue. Sinuses are I believe the most common cause for migraines. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a process to clean out the inner ear. I met someone once who would get dizzy from time to time from her inner ear and it was just a condition she lived with.
  - abnercoimbre 6y ago
    I have indeed suffered from sinuses. I'll mention it to my physician. Also thanks for your top comment about avoiding life-long resistance -- you've been super helpful all around!
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      Aww thanks. <3

zaroth 6y ago

I’m so glad you found something that works. My wife is perhaps in the early stages of this journey. What started as “bad headaches” once a week has, over the last six months, graduated into serious migraines where she can’t leave a pitch black room for most of the day. They seem to cycle intensity where they are much worse 2 weeks out of 4. She’s on nortriptyline daily with sumatriptan taken during episodes, but which is only partially effective after the 2nd or 3rd dose and about 5 days a month basically totally ineffective. It’s fucked up that the human body is capable of causing itself so much pain over an ailment we can’t even identify in any test or scan. It’s completely debilitating. If it was for myself I would absolutely experiment with psilocybin or mushrooms in search of a treatment, but her personal history just isn’t conducive to anything remotely hallucinogenic without a very highly experienced guide in the best of circumstances.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
Some things that helped me massively: Despite having 20-20, I would get eye strain and I could not differentiate it between a migraine and eye strain. Worse yet, eye strain lasts for days just like a migraine. Switching from a 1080p monitor to a 4k monitor with a reasonably low dot pitch, minimizing video game playing, and hunching (looking at a laptop screen, looking at a cell phone), helped me massively. Oh and blackout curtains are a godsend if the sun rises or sets in the general direction of the room you're staying in. I went to a chronic pain clinic, and I was glad I did. When you lay in bed too long (especially when females do) the muscles deteriorate and this in itself causes chronic pain that can at times be difficult to distinguish from a migraine. I had to go to a physical therapist and it helped tons. A pain clinic will prescribe antidepressants, because they often will work for all kinds of chronic pain, including migraines, but sadly for me they only worked about the first month and then became ineffective. However, I did learn from that the best anti-depressants and anti-anxietiants in the first world outside of the US (because pharmaceutical companies can't make a profit off of it) are RIMAs [1] and are absolutely worth perusing if you have depression. Out of pocket they're about $20 a month, and they can help with pain too. And on top of all of that, turns out I get migraines from allergies. I'm unfortunately highly allergic to every grass and tree allergy allergists test and a few of them cause migraines for me. Second, I'm allergic to soy which causes a severe migraine response, so I'm constantly cautious. It was an allergist of all people who helped me get on the right migraine medicine. The allergist I went to dubs himself an allergist when other allergists fail, and does food allergies too. Unfortunately, my allergies haven't gone away, but at least I know a cause for my migraines. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide

smcleod 6y ago

I used to take Sumatriptan, it was a life saver if you got onto it quickly. As I've got older I've had them less and less so no longer need to take it - but I do recommend people having regular migraines to speak to their Doctor and mention it.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
>I used to take Sumatriptan, it was a life saver if you got onto it quickly. It's the opposite for me. If I take it too early into the migraine it sometimes doesn't work. I will intentionally sit with the migraine for around an hour, or until it gets bad enough, then take sumatriptan and wait the 1h30m to 2 hours for the pain to go away. 2-3 hours of a headache is far better than a day of a full on migraine. Once I take it and it doesn't work it builds up resistance for at least 12 hours, so I'm stuck. I'll take the headache.
- aaronblohowiak 6y ago
  Wow, amazing how varied people's responses to these things are! If I wait too long to take a triptan, its effectiveness reduces quite a bit. I generally try to arrest the migraine with ibuprofen but then take the triptan if it progresses.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    Yep. At this point we shouldn't be thinking of a migraine as a singular thing. Sure, singular symptoms, but there are so many different varied causes and conditions that it can not be a single illness. Sometimes when migraine medicine does not work for me, it's because it's a headache not a migraine. I have some over the counter "migraine strength pain killer" pills which are acetaminophen, asprin, and caffeine, which works most times the migraine medicine does nothing.
- cameronh90 6y ago
  That sounds oddly curious to how psilocybin resistance works. With mushrooms, you have to take the entire dose at the outset. As soon as you can feel it, you now have a strong resistance and any further dose will have a greatly diminished effect.

gohokies 6y ago

I havent seen anyone mention it yet in the thread but if you can get your insurance to cover Emgality, give it a shot. Its a brand new peptide thats only been on the market for 2 years~. This is the first year I have been able to basically completely abate all pain derived from my cluster headaches (had them yearly at the same time for 5 years) by taking the injection (just) before onset of a cycle. Psilocybin never did much to effect cycle length or pain level for me, and the triptans have some of the worst side effects I have ever seen personally, in a drug. /anecdota

proverbialbunny 6y ago
For anyone else who is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcanezumab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galcanezumab Thank you.

soulofmischief 6y ago

Unfortunately, it became illegal around a decade ago. However, the ability to precisely measure a dose is a huge benefit over traditional mushrooms. Anecdotally, I have a friend who experiences chronic cluster headaches and low mushroom doses were the first thing in 20+ years which they said just worked, and well, without any negative side-effects.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
It was a decade ago when I was using it, but still I wanted to verify so I looked it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Acetylpsilocin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Acetylpsilocin It says in the US it's still unscheduled. ^_^
- 3131s 6y ago
  Unfortunately not really, as 4-AcO-DMT would definitely fall under the Federal Analogue Act. And if you order it in the mail (as is common with "research chemicals") they'll tack on charges for mail fraud and trafficking across state lines.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    That's what I meant by legal, unscheduled. Technically they don't go after buyers for unscheduled drugs. If you buy in bulk large enough that they suspect you're a seller, but don't have any reports of you being a seller they'll give you a love letter which is, "We confiscated your package. Don't do it again." and that's the max penalty for buying 4-aco in the US. If a law is unenforced in the US, it is legal. To prove it is enforced if they ever want to go after sellers, they have to capture multiple sellers at once in bulk to prove there is no bias. The legal system is interesting in the US, isn't it? Also, where I live (Oakland) it's totally outright legalized, so no problems.
    - soulofmischief 6y ago
      Oakland is one thing, but unscheduled doesn't mean much. That's the point of the federal analogue act and I remember exactly when it started being applied to tryptamine-based research chemicals around 2010. There are too many subtle chemical variations to take the time to put them all on the books directly, they are covered with the act. We can talk theory and everything, but I've seen people get arrested and charged for both possession and procurement, so.

krrrh 6y ago

If you can’t get 4-aco but have access to mushrooms, search around for “lemon tek”, or “blue juice” cold water extraction. It can get you the psilocybin/psilocin without the body effect of chewing on mushrooms. Still not as easy to dose precisely as pharma grade, but don’t discount the entourage effect which could be as rich an area of research over the next few years as cannabinoid research is now.

jwmoz 6y ago

Any idea why you were getting them? I also had 2 months of migraines and headache issues recently and don't know why. Sumatriptan saved my life.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
Yah, I wrote about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25192775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25192775

BatteryMountain 6y ago

Random question: did you or still do consume caffeine? If so, how much?

proverbialbunny 6y ago
Migraines and caffeine are not correlated, with rare exception like a food allergy to caffeine, coffee, or milk. However, tension headaches and caffeine are strongly correlated. I don't drink much in the way of caffeine. When I drink coffee I drink decaf. I also drink decaf tea sometimes. I also drink irregularly. I'll go a week or two without any decaf or anything and then another week drinking six cups a day.

beauzero 6y ago

My wife and daughter both had the inner ear piercings have been migraine free. One for a year now and the other for 2 months. We will see how long it lasts. Daughter was a migraine every 1-2 weeks and wife was 2-3 a week.