We see this as an interim solution for immediate relief and nothing else while we seek less evasive and potentially less threatening solutions. He has begun Magnesium and Melatonin treatments as well. He did not respond to O2.

One thing to consider is the amount we are talking about here. 1/4th a cigarette aka a few puffs not ever a full cigarette has been needed.  Add to that, the absorbing rate of smoking pot is 15% through a cigarette. You can do the math but we're not talking about a great deal into the blood stream.

I really don't believe it's killing the pain as such. That small amount of weed is not enough to kill the intense pain of these things. I know when I had these, it took something like Demerol at the hospital to kill just the pain and even then it did not relieve the pressure for me. Something else must be happening. What exactly that is we do not know.

One advantage of the tinctures are the flash (vaporizing) points of certain cannibinods. You can literally cook out most of the THC and still have the benefits of the other cannibnoids. In this case you can take it in small doses and never feel stoned as such. That's exactly what I did, I cooked out the part that get's you high. The effects at most is a relaxed sensation, similar to 1/2 of a 5mg Valium depending on how many drops you take.

It must be attaching to some receptors or nerve agents or perhaps the part of the brain that controls dilation or contraction. One thing seems clear, it has worked repeatedly for him as a near instant abort.

What we are testing now is the longevity. He usually has a headache before 7:00 am. Usually it is before 3:00 but the added Melatonin seems to have adjusted his clock so the headaches are coming later. That's interesting enough on it's own.

He had a CH coming on earlier today and took a few drops of the tincture, which aborted the headache. His report in the morning may shed some light on the longevity of this treatment.

I'll report back if there is any interest. Otherwise, all I can say is YMMV.

Hey Marc,

I'm not trying to sell anything to anyone, just reporting.

I did find something new just now.
The way it works on pain is there is specific nerves that deal with pain. They are called vanilloid-Receptors. Anandamide(sanscript word for "Blissful Amide"), the bodies internally produced marijuana binds with the nerve endings, reducing pain. Anandamides are produced internally by our bodies in response to a whole variety of conditions. As an example, Aspirin prevents the breakdown of Anandamide, the internally produced marijuana to activate & start working at easing pain.

This was pulled from an article I found here. It was part of #12.

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

I repeat, I don't know why it works.

Just some references to cannabis known also as marijuana:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Dronabinol, is the main psychoactive substance found in the Cannabis:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

info about Medical Cannabis:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

I could not find (for now) any reference to a study or documentation about CH and Cannabis, other then the observation made in The Montefiore Headache Center, Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
"Cluster attacks responsive to recreational cannabis and dronabinol," Headache journal, Feb. 2009.

I am looking via my neurologist and the pain clinic in St. Gallen Switzerland if they are aware of any publication or study, explicitly in relation to CH

I will be grateful if Bob Wald will add some info, if he has any, I think he is the most competent person (that I know) that could shade some light into this subject

Michael

Having been a pot-head 10+ years ago and having had chronic clusters at the time, I can say that FOR ME pot smoking was a trigger not a cure.  I denied it for a while, but soon I couldn't even deny it any longer.  Get high, an hour later, have a CH 90% of the time.  About the same as having a drink.

Good luck to you and your sons,

Ray

Wouldn't be my first, second or tenth choice as a therapy, but many people need to try 11 or 12 things to find decent relief.  The conventional wisdom is that this treatment does nothing or makes things worse (and I think that is generally correct) but we are starting to see evidence that a small minority may indeed have clear benefits.

One research note that bears mentioning: another plant that hits the anandamide receptors is echinacea (coneflower). It hits a different subset (CB2 instead of CB1, as marijuana does).  It is the alkamide component of echinacea that does this - if you use a tincture, the alkamides will cause a prickly feeling in the mouth, so it is possible to gauge the activity of a preparation.  Whether it as an effective substitute for grass or not, I don't know.

In Ayurveda, echinacea is tamasic, which roughly means heavy, dulling - the same is obviously true of marijuana.  Another tamasic plant that a few have reported useful is hops. Hops is in the cannabis family. Hops has been shown to hit the melatonin receptors, no word on the cannabis receptors (I think it probably does - I don't drink beer much because it zombifies me in a way other alcohol does not, and I am sensitive to CB disruption).

MartinL wrote on Mar 18^th, 2009 at 9:47pm:


LOL - a minor typo that anyone could make, but very funny. "Sanscript" could mean "without letters" or unwritten.  The unwritten word for bliss is very powerful - it was featured prominently in Buddha's Flower Sermon. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

MartinL wrote on Mar 19^th, 2009 at 9:56am:


Be pretty dumb to just have two beers then.  How bout if he drinks a twelve pack?

      Kinder gentler Potter

Martin,

At the risk of being repetitive, your son does not sound like a typical Cluster Headache sufferer - two beers is bad, but a six pack is OK?

Seriously, I would have him reevaluated by a competent neurologist to rule out other potential problems which in fact could be dangerous.

Best of luck

Marc

I'll let you guys continue to hash out:

- Smoking pot to abort CH's
- Consuming large quantities of alcohol to avoid being hit

Not my approach......I'll stick with O2 thank you.

I'm not saying that drinking alcohol is a good treatment - merely that there have been others here have reported that continuous drinking can suppress hits. I rarely drink (never in cycle) and I don't use pot. I also made it clear that most people don't see improvement from THC, while many get worse. 

The fact that someone has an atypical pattern of clusters, or responds very differently from most of us is bound to raise suspicions of misdiagnosis etc.  We need to recognize that this is not the norm.  But I think we should listen.


Consider the comments of Ave, who had 650+ posts when she wrote this:
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Sorry, but these two just don't jive in my head:

MartinL wrote on Mar 18^th, 2009 at 4:51pm:


MartinL wrote on Mar 19^th, 2009 at 9:03am:

One headache a day?

     Kinder gentler Potter

Martin,

One point I would like to clarify is that on one post you said MJ did not work as a pain killer, that it worked in some other presently unknown ways as an abortive, yet all the information you quoted including the email from Dr Melamede is about pain control mechanism of MJ.

So which is it ? Abortive or pain control ?

If indeed your son has an endocannabinoid deficiency leading to extra sensitive CB1/CB2 receptors, then taking Omega 3 would be just as effective and less dangerous than MJ.

I also notice that your son is taking Melatonin and Magnesium. Its going to be difficult to tell if the relief is not due to those two working.

Lastly, did your son keep a headache diary for the previous cycles? Could he be coming to the end of the cycle anyway?

I am not playing the devil advocate here, but since CH can be affected by so many different things, its important to rule out other factors to be able to get a clear picture. I understand the drive to find and believe in a magic bullet and often hope clouds our judgement.

Have you written to the neurologists at the Albert Einstein College ? They would be in a better position to share how they thought it would work and in what cases ?

One more thing your son may consider doing which would be really helpful is to videotape himself taking a hit, how he doses with this tincture and how the hit is aborted. Similar videos had been made demonstrating how high flow oxygen works and that was found to be hugely helpful to many people.

Thanks again for sharing.

The reason I didn't think it was just pain killer is because he reported no pressure behind the eye. His are identical to mine in location and symptoms, top right of the head. Another point, I believed I had vaporized the THC when I made the tincture however as Dr. Bob just stated the THC is the prime component in pain therapy.

Obviously, I'm not sure what's going on. When he knows the headache is a certainty, that's when he uses the tinctures and the hit goes away before it escalates. If he never had a headache, he would not ever use the tincture. He does not want pot in his system.

You're right about too many things at once. How will I know what works? I have a bottle of fish oil out now to give him and have been researching Kudzu today as well. I'm trying everything I know to try that's on the natural cure side of the equation.

I have written the Albert Einstein school but have not heard back.

He would never do a video, he's ashamed of doing any drugs. It's as simple as an eyedropper and a few drops under the tongue and hold for 2 minutes. Dosing amounts can be tricky though and someone has to test the dosage. That was me in this case and I diluted the tincture to only allow for a slight relaxed feeling. Once I knew it was only about the same effect of 2mg of Valium, I let my son try it with my tight supervision for two days, once he knew how much to take, I sent him with a very small bottle. One could argue tinctures are safer and less harmful than smoking it but then pot is not good in any amount.

None of this is safe and I only wish they would just go away. That's not happening, so I will continue to seek and fight on. He did have a shadow this morning, took some aspirin then the tincture, he said once again, the tincture did the trick before the aspirin even had time to dissolve. In my mind, using it this way is an abortive.