Posted by Flash (213.123.72.132) on October 16, 2000 at 13:33:49:
In Reply to: correct on the trespassing and my ungiving attitude, however posted by sailpappy on October 16, 2000 at 12:20:52:
First off, please could you address some points in your most recent post:
When you say "someone slipped me a psylibin cap" - what exactly do you mean? The top of a shroom? A pill? The reason I ask is that I cannot see how it is possible for someone to slip you the top of a mushroom. The only psychoactive mushroom that is small enough to do this with is Liberty Cap. A single Liberty Cap would have a negligible impact on a man. It would be different for a rodent perhaps, but the hallucinogenic dose of Liberty Cap is 50! And that's barely hallucinogenic. Assmuing it was a pill, how do you know it was Psilocybin? I'm not being rhetorical, I just wondered how you knew. I am unaware of Psilocybin tablets, but I am much younger, and a lot of things past me by. I've never seen a lude either:)
The person that died from ingesting shrooms is the other thing I'd like to touch on. How exactly did the shrooms kill him? The reason I ask this is because it is a fact that a person would be required to eat their own body weight in any Psilocybin containing shroom to achieve a fatally toxic dose. There are many cases of poisioning through misidentification, and pinky and myself have continually warned about this. There is another family of psychoactive shroom, that includes things like the Fly Agaric, and Panther Cap. These are much more dangerous, and contain no Psilocybin, only something called muscimol (or muscrine or something). These are at least paritally toxic, and I have no idea whether they would have any theraputic value. Finally there is the old myth about people ingesting either shrooms or LSD, and then jumping out of a window etc. I'd like to see a death certificate proving this. To the best of my knowledge there has never been any such incident. There have been 4 cases of drowning whilst intoxicated with LSD. The stories of people jumping out of windows are for real, they are just mistakenly attributed to LSD (and I guess sometimes shrooms), in fact the drug that occasionally causes this type of behaviour is PCP - "Angel Dust". It's also much more toxic than LSD, and with many nasty side effects. PCPs basic function is to make people believe that they are superhuman. This is the drug that the tazer gun was designed to combat.
The reason that I'm bringing all this up, and asking you these questions, is that I wouldn't want anybody to be misinformed. Say for instance I had a friend that took an Imitrex shot and died shortly afterwards (in fact unlike shrooms, this IS possible), and I post that information on this board, only omitting the fact that my friend was actually the victim of a hit and run. That would be misinformation. Please forgive me for implying that you may be misleading people, but you already implied that I am akin to a drug pusher, so the gloves are off :)
Another question I have is whether you use any prescription or over the counter drugs, not necessarily for CH, but for anything? The reason I ask is that these are drugs too, and I fail to understand how some people can make a distinction. For instance between methysergide and LSD, in terms of being good and bad respectively.
Now to address the original point, which was that myself and others may be using this board as a way of justifying our illicit drug use, and even attempting to corrupt other people. Err - why?
Here is an extract from an email I sent to another sufferer today, before you posted on this thread:
I better state up front that I have no personal investment in shroom therapy. I used LSD recreationally
when I was younger, but I don't have the stomach for that type of experience any more. The only reason I
haven't aborted this cycle with shrooms, is that I believed it would require a larger dose (because the headaches
were at their peak), and I was too chicken to go for it!!!
Whether hallucinogens can cause CH is a tricky question. What what I have seen, the incidence of
hallucinogenic drug users is no higher among CH sufferers than it is among those unaffected. My own CH
began at least 7 years prior to my first trip. In the 12 months subsequent to that trip I didn't get any CH. The
pattern was repeated the following year (1993 and 1994). Neither of my parents has even taken a
hallucinogen. My mother has migraine though, and my Grandmother was a CH sufferer.
I am now convinced that my own CH was caused by being over prescribed the antibiotic Oxytetracycline, and
several other related antibiotics, in the 12 months prior to the onset of CH. These drugs were given to treat
acne, and I must have spent close to a year on antibiotics. It is now known that this type of treatment will
almost certainly cause chronic candida infection - implicated in causing CH, IBS, MPVS, ME and other lesser
ailments. I have CH, IBS & MPVS, and many of the lesser ailments.
Note that both DMT and TMT are closely related to Imitrex/Imigram/Sumatriptan. And that
Sansert/Methysergide and Ergotmaine are sister drugs of LSD.
I too am still wary of the shrooms. I procrastinate about every single dose. In 1997 I put off taking them
altogether - hence the January 1998 episode. Hence why I have been seeking out the minimum dose - it's more
in my own interests than those of amateur science. This has also backfired somewhat, resulting in the agony I
have endured for the last 7 days. And I'm too chicken to ingest enough Psilo to abort it.
Having said that, I am comfortable with the dose I now know is required to abort/prevent an episode at the
beginning. This quantity of shrooms doesn't produce any unwanted side effects. Although I do still worry,
probably irrationally, that they might make me chronic or something. This is really due to irrational guilt feelings,
that in avoiding the pain, I may be setting myself up for something worse. On the contrary shrooms have
prevented attacks every time I've had the guts to use them. If you count my 2 PF years of recreational abuse,
then these substances have prevented CH episodes every time I have used them, this has given me 6 pain free
years in total and - 14 skipped episodes.
If I take the shrooms during an attack, then I know within 30 mins that I have done the right thing. I guess the
effect on the headache is similar to what people say about Imitrex, only much longer lasting.
I fully sympathise with anyone that is wary of taking shrooms. Like I said, I have agonised over the decision on
every occasion. That is no way to embark on even the smallest of trips!
My motivation for highlighting the effect of shrooms on CH, is not to encourage people to take this illegal and
possibly risky treatment; I want to make the medical profession, and pharmaceutical companies take notice.
In your original response, you asked why I don't use Ergotamine instead of shrooms. It isn't advisable for me to take either Ergotamine or Methysergide since I have MPVS. Both those substance are related to LSD, they are all derived from Ergot; they are Ergot Alkaloids. Chemically there are some similarities. However, just like a family where there are 3 children, LSD got the brains, the other 2 got the looks. Check out their MSDS stats on the Internet. Both Ergotamine and Methysergide are pretty nasty. In fact I understand that next to the drugs used in chemotherpy, these are among the most toxic things you can be prescribed. Both have the ability to cause fibrosis of the lungs, heart, and kidneys. the only other substance that causes fibrosis of the lungs is asbestos! You see where I'm coming from. MPVS or no MPVS there is no way I would risk taking either of these. In contrast LSD is only as toxic as vitamin A. That's less much toxic than caffiene or nicotine. Everything is toxic if you take enough of it. Oxygen included, as I'm sure you are aware.
If everything was legal, then how many people would choose the dangerous and ineffective methsergide over the safe and effective LSD? If Timothy Leary (originally a pharmacologist) hadn't hijacked LSD, then there is little doubt that it would have become THE drug of choice in treating all vascular headches. Just ask Kenn - he was PRESCRIBED it by a DOCTOR; what's more it worked!
Drug is a pretty feeble word. Food is full of drugs. We breath drugs in every day, whether we like it or not. It's much better to use a more specific term relating to the type of drug. For instance cocaine is a narcotic. It has medicinal value. It CAN be prescribed for CH (although as the second last resort), heroin is an opiate, it can also be prescribed for CH (as the LAST resort). This may depend what country you live in. LSD and Psilocybin fall into several categories:
Mild vascular constrictor.
Serotonin agonist.
Serotonin antagonist (yeah both of those, I don't understand how or why though).
Hallucinogen.
LSD is one of the most powerful chemical agents known to man. There is nothing else that operates in such tiny doses. For instance to treat Ch with Methysergide, 2 Milligrams is required daily. In the case of LSD 15 micrograms is required annually. That is 1/133 of the dose outright, but taking the frequency into account it is 1/10000th (a ten thousandth).
Both LSD and Psilocybin are counter addictive. That means that the more you take them, the less you want them. Again that is a scientific fact. Shrooms cannot be 'pushed' for financial gain. You can't even say that about beta-blockers!
As far as bad habits go - well I don't even smoke.
Flash