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Marijuana and Cluster Headaches (Read 55848 times)
The Demon in my Head
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Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
May 15th, 2009 at 3:50pm
 
I am a Clusterhead like most of you and would like to wonder if any of you who Smoke Marijuana (Bud, Weed, Trees) well i smoke Regular Marijuana what can grow by itself and have noticed that times where i have shadows i can just toke it up and it will go away....now other times it just seems to have no effect whether preventative or trigger, smoke same amount everyday and only days with cycles do i get hit....do any of you feel the same way? my doctor keeps trying to insist that it is a TRIGGER like ALCHOHOL but i disagree 100% what do you guys think?
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #1 - May 15th, 2009 at 3:54pm
 
You will find that this horse has been beat to death.  Dope is a huge trigger for ch.  Oxygen is the preferred method for aborting ch.

               Potter
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #2 - May 15th, 2009 at 3:55pm
 
There have been many posts on this subject.  Most people here would agree with your Dr.
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #3 - May 15th, 2009 at 3:57pm
 
Yep...What Beth and Potter said.

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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #4 - May 15th, 2009 at 4:21pm
 
nope your doctor is right. has something to do what it does to your vanes. like when your eyes get bloodshot when your stoned. its a surefire trigger for me. on the other hand many off us have gotten some relief from mushrooms and lsd.

edited to add: Smiley Smiley Smiley Grin
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #5 - May 15th, 2009 at 4:25pm
 
THC is a vaso-diolator (sp?) which for CH'ers tends to be a really bad thing, as everything we use to fight CH is a vaso constrictor. You'll find we're an open bunch and are not a bunch of puritan "anti pot" zealots! If we thought it'd help you, we'd tell you so. Be really careful with it when you're on cycle as you could end up triggering a nasty KIP-10!

If you haven't already, do read the oxygen info linkmon the left. Enjoying an incredible success rate on the board, worth a try!

Joe
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #6 - May 16th, 2009 at 6:11am
 
Just a thought,

Were you using THC when you started getting CH attacks ? if yes,  there is the answer your looking for.

Based on your post It sounds to me that you are a normal THC user regardless of your CH attacks, and you are hoping it would be valid treatment for your CH's. It sounds like you have a CH knowledgeable doctor, be grateful for that even if you disagree with his thoughts on THC therapy. There are also allot of people that drink during normal states and will not touch a drop during a cycle and that have quit all together just to avoid being triggered.

As the others have stated there has been allot of self research done and the results say it's not a good thing to do for CH attacks. For me with this many other suffers saying be careful I would take there advice and try everything that has been proven to work.

What other treatments have you tried? what was your experience with them? let us know maybe we can help in areas you or your doctor haven't thought of yet. But don't let a disagreement on one thing discourage or bias you into not trying others.

~James
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #7 - Jun 1st, 2009 at 11:21am
 
I'd also have to agree with your doctor. I've noticed that on days that I smoke the headaches I get that night are worse than on days I didn't smoke.

I can reproduce the results consistently. If I smoke today, tonight the headaches will be more frequent and stronger than if I don't smoke.

Still, they won't be as bad as the ones I'll get if I drink alcohol. I completely refrain from drinking when I'm having my headaches!
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #8 - Jun 9th, 2009 at 4:54pm
 
Back in my younger years i too found it to be nothing short of a horrible idea to smoke in a cycle.
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #9 - Jun 9th, 2009 at 8:42pm
 
I sure wish this entire thread could be stickied for future use.

Dead horse indeed.  This subject comes up at least once every 4 to 6 weeks,  and we all have to say the same things over and over again.  A lot of folks take our collective word for the fact that this is a trigger and a lot get totally defensive.   Roll Eyes
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #10 - Jun 14th, 2009 at 6:53pm
 
The important thing to think about is who are you proving this to and how are you doing it?
As with so many things related to CH they are different to all of us it just might be possible that you are the exception, however if you are seriouse about getting an answer there is only one way.
You will have to give up that beautiful green friend for a time and see for yourself!
I quit for 6 months straight to include before/during/after my cycle and this was pre any abortive medication so i really lived out the pain, and i found no difference in the pattern or ferocity of my attacks.
That said i seriously cut down during my cycle and avoid smoking anything within atleast 2 hours of an injection or i get real bad nausea.

I understand your reluctance and feel your pain but I recomend that you take the hard road and prove it to your self and your doc either way. Some truth isnt worth hiding from.

Peace and PFD to you

Ollyjay
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #11 - Apr 12th, 2012 at 11:51am
 
i live in VA where Marijuana is not legal and my doctor actually suggested me trying it ! i have been smoking weed for about 8 years. helps me relax. But during my days with the attacks i would stay away from it. becuse i thought it would make it worse. but about 3 months ago i tryed it during the shadows of my attack a round a 5 in pain ! and after smoking about .5 i was completly fine ! thank god ! now everytime i start to have an attack i smoke and am fine ! it is great ! now i will say that if your attack wakes you up in the middle of your sleep the Marijuana will not help. you have to smoke before the pain reaches a 7 in intensity. preferbly the earlier the better. and smoke out of bongs pipes bowls vaps or doobie . dont try and smoke out of a blunt during an attack it contains nicotin and makes it worse ! Also dont smoke mid grade. only the good stuff because mids will make your headache worse ! hope you find this helpfull ! it is also deff not a trigger i quit for a year at one point to see if that was causing it but still had the chronic CH!
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #12 - Apr 12th, 2012 at 1:15pm
 
I can't help but think that people whose headache condition is improved by weed are not suffering from CH.
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #13 - Apr 12th, 2012 at 4:00pm
 
Brew wrote on Apr 12th, 2012 at 1:15pm:
I can't help but think that people whose headache condition is improved by weed are not suffering from CH.

I've wondered that myself.
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #14 - Apr 23rd, 2012 at 12:21pm
 
Potter wrote on May 15th, 2009 at 3:54pm:
You will find that this horse has been beat to death.  Dope is a huge trigger for ch


I agree, it has been beaten to death.  The thing I disagree with is where everyone ignores the pubmed article (originally in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain Volume 49, Issue 6) entitled Cluster attacks responsive to recreational cannabis and dronabinol. (a link that has been posted many times but for some reason people seem to want to ignore it)

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A 19-year-old right-handed university student presented to the Montefiore Headache Center for evaluation and management of his cluster headaches. Over the past 2 years, he had a cyclical pattern of stereotyped attacks occurring predictably every 1 to 2 months, lasting approximately 2 weeks. During these 2-week cluster periods, he experienced 1 attack every other day. Each cluster period was typically followed by a remission phase lasting 1 to 2 months. However, over the past 3 months, the frequency gradually increased to 1 to 2 attacks daily.

The majority of attacks would abruptly awaken him from sleep at 12:30 am or 4:30 am with excruciating right temporal and peri-orbital pain. Each episode lasted 3 to 4 h untreated, with the pain reaching maximal intensity within 10 min and declining within 10 min at its conclusion.

He did not drink alcohol, but noted that marijuana use at the onset of his headaches consistently brought complete relief within 5 min of inhalation for each attack.


It is a small study, one person.  but you KNOW that if there is one person there has to be more (like me and all the others who have reported it to work)  If I have smoked it often, it stops working (kinda like every other drug I take for clusters).  If I get a strain that is more sedating than hallucinatory it doesn't seem to work as well either (no surprise here, hallucinogenic substances have a pretty damn good track record for busting clusters)  More than anything, I find it EXTREMELY useful for getting rid of my clusters, even tough one's if I combine it with either opiates or ketamine...opiates don't really seem to work at all for me unless I smoke with it, then it kicks it's ass.

As far as
   
    "I can't help but think that people whose headache condition is improved by weed are not suffering from CH."

My response would be that I can't help but wonder if the people that get help from reefer are hesitant to post about it because so many people try and claim that these people don't have clusters...

My real question with everybody is this--just because it doesn't work for you, why are you so inclined to write it off?  Exercise doesn't work for everyone...Why aren't we telling the people that can't bust with excercise that they don't have clusters either?

After the the number of people that I have talked to claiming that cannabis HAS worked for them, I actually recommend it now--mostly because if you are one of the lucky ones that it actually works for, you have a non-toxic remedy available for you. (no small feat in the world of cluster headache drugs) The stipulation with my recommending this, is that you should make sure that you have an imitrex shot, some O2, or some other quick acting abortive ready in case you are one of the ones that it doesn't work for.

As far as the whole blood vessel dilators are bad for clusters idea, I think that's another subject that has been beaten to death and essentially thrown out--many dilators help CH, and many constrictors make them worse.
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #15 - Apr 23rd, 2012 at 6:13pm
 
Well written sir, and a nice reminder to all. Remaining open minded can at times prove incredibly beneficial.

Joe
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #16 - Apr 24th, 2012 at 7:36am
 
Quote:
As far as the whole blood vessel dilators are bad for clusters idea, I think that's another subject that has been beaten to death and essentially thrown out--many dilators help CH, and many constrictors make them worse.


For example? lance
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #17 - Apr 24th, 2012 at 8:32am
 
wimsey1 wrote on Apr 24th, 2012 at 7:36am:
Quote:
As far as the whole blood vessel dilators are bad for clusters idea, I think that's another subject that has been beaten to death and essentially thrown out--many dilators help CH, and many constrictors make them worse.


For example? lance


Here's a copy of something I put on Clusterbusters a while back...

Caffeine works by vasoconstriction right? Here's a quote by Dale Pendal in an amazing book I have, Pharmakodynamis.  "While caffeine is generally a vasodilator, it has the opposite effect in the kidneys and brain, actually decreasing blood flow to the brain.  It is the increase in cerebrovascular resistance that makes it effective against migraines caused by cerebrovascular  distention."   
      
How about ginger, an amazingly effective Vasodilator, why does it help so much for clusters? 

I don't know how many times I've heard that sumatriptan works by vasoconstriction...It's sulfonated DMT, I think it's doing a lot more than just vasoconstriction.  (my guess is your brain gets flooded with serotonin, just like DMT does, but it's JUST serotonin, not halucinogenic DMT)

Pseudoephedrine, a known trigger for clusters is a vasoconstricter.

Feverfew, a substance many migrainers and some cluster sufferers get relief from is a vasodilator.

capsaicin, another really good vasodilator, has helped a lot of people with migraines and clusters....

Here's a couple links, admittedly about migraines, but I think the parallels with CH can easily be seen...

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-Ricardo
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #18 - Apr 25th, 2012 at 7:26am
 
Ricardo, I have no academic background with which to substantively argue your examples, except from my own experience. Just to take two of your examples: ginger and pseudophedrine. Ginger has helped me not in the least, while I accept it has helped some. Pseudophedrine has helped, at least in the beginning, and has never been a trigger for me. I think your example, and explanation of caffeine, comes closest. Like verapamil, it is probable it's ability to help comes not from vascular interaction but some yet unclear neuronal action. Based on articles Bob J has posted it seems that here too we have run into the complexity of what a CH actually is, why it does what it does, and a rather hit or miss regimen of prescriptions. Bottom line for me is: it helps or it does not. Not being a medical researcher, I really don't care if it dilates, constricts or whatever. Does it make things worse for me or does it help? And I'm afraid we are not universal in our agreements here. If we were, I suspect causation would be much easier to determine. Blessings, and thanks for your unique insights! lance
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #19 - Apr 25th, 2012 at 10:22am
 
wimsey1 wrote on Apr 25th, 2012 at 7:26am:
Ricardo, I have no academic background with which to substantively argue your examples, except from my own experience. Just to take two of your examples: ginger and pseudophedrine. Ginger has helped me not in the least, while I accept it has helped some. Pseudophedrine has helped, at least in the beginning, and has never been a trigger for me.


I think that what you're saying drives home my real point very well--that there is NO drug that can reliably GIVE everyone a cluster, and there is no drug that can take away everyone's cluster.  My guess is this has more to do with individual brain chemistry than the idea that "these people don't have clusters because there clusters don't act like mine"

I also think that you would be hard pressed to find any cluster headache researcher that still subscribes to the idea that vasodilators= bad/vasoconstricters= good for clusters.

I understand your personal experiences, everyone is different.  But here is one study (again with migrainers, but the whole dilation/constriction theory that they have thrown at us has consistently been the same for migrainers and cluster sufferers) showing a combination of feverfew and ginger, both vasodilators.  The conclusion was that it was "safe and effective as a first-line abortive".  This shows that not all vasodilators are going to trigger you, and some of them may actually help. 

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I suggest we move away from telling people that marijuana is a trigger because it is a vasodilator, and move towards telling people that for some reason that we do not yet understand, some people are triggered by marijuana, some people get relief, and some people have no effect on their clusters. 

If it helps at all, I'll give you a bit of my experiences.  Right now, I am being treated by a one of the first Neurologists that I have thought actually seems to know what he's talking about.  He has passed the United Council for Neurologic subspecialites headache medicine exam--the ONLY accreditation out there to prove that you know what is up with headache medicine. 

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His diagnosis is that I have cluster headaches, and he knows that marijuana seems to help me.  If anyone else has passed a rigorous test like this, and disagrees with my neurologists opinion, I will be glad to reformulate my ideas.

Last thought--to me, it really is no surprise that we have such varied reactions to Cannabis.  I know many people that have tried recreational marijuana, and you will hear some people say it makes them anxious, some it calms them down.    For some it wakes them up, for some it makes them sleepy.  Some it inspires creativity, some it makes them stupid and stoned.  My guess is that individual brain chemistry and cannabanoid receptor differences makes it so that all sorts of people get different reactions.

And ya'll are right...we should try and make this a yellow sticky Smiley

-Ricardo
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #20 - Apr 26th, 2012 at 6:27pm
 
Oral ingestion of cannabis does help migraines and many other medical conditions. As for my cluster attacks...smoking dope is = to sticking my hand in a meatgrinder. We are all individuals with personal physiology what works on one will not work on another, what triggers one will not trigger another. No scientifically known cause or cure. That has been presented here over and over. It is the nature of this syndrome. ENIGMA it is. I wished I could eat a big cookie Cheesy
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #21 - Jun 5th, 2012 at 4:44pm
 
Look we all have an absolutely shitty condition! And we are all trying to cope with it and trying our own ways to treat them due to the lack of research being done! Now answer this if just because I say pot does help my clusters sometime (not every time) that I must not have them please explained why some preventative work for some, some abortive works for some, oxygen works for some, working out works for some but none of these things listed work for all of us! ! ! Everyone is different okay! don’t dismiss someone’s illness just because one thing may work for them and it does not work for you. That is just ignorant. In that case everyone with cluster would all be given (Topamax Prednisone and Sumavel) <---- just and example of what I am on. I am 23 and had this condition since I was 11 I have the chronic form and I am pretty sure when I am on the verge of pushing my hand threw my eye, and crying my eye's out cuz i feel like someone is shoving a knife threw my eye. I know the condition I have !
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #22 - Jun 5th, 2012 at 8:15pm
 
Quote:
You will find that this horse has been beat to death.


It sure HAS!!!!!!!!!

Weed is a vasodilator.   Please listen to your doctor.  And us.
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #23 - Jun 6th, 2012 at 7:54am
 
lydia nichole wrote on Jun 5th, 2012 at 4:44pm:
Look we all have an absolutely shitty condition! And we are all trying to cope with it and trying our own ways to treat them due to the lack of research being done!

Everyone is different okay! don’t dismiss someone’s illness just because one thing may work for them and it does not work for you.


Lydia, I couldn't agree with you more. We have an absolutely horrible condition about which too little is known. I'm glad you have found something that works for you. It beats the alternatives. As for recommending a treatment, or an abortive, with the sense that it is "nearly" universal, we need to be very cautious. Even O2 doesn't work for everyone, nor does Red Bull, or even Prednisone. The opposite is also true: some interventions that seem useless to most of us, may have beneficial outcomes for some.

I think the true genius of this site is the shared experience of what has worked most of the time for most of the sufferer's, as well as what has worked some of the time for some of the sufferer's. We are emotionally invested because we are in so much pain.

Please realize no one is trying to minimalize your experience. Like you, we are only trying to find relief. God bless. lance
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Re: Marijuana and Cluster Headaches
Reply #24 - Jun 6th, 2012 at 8:52am
 
What Lance said. A gentle, loving reminder. This is the internet. Not everyone is going to agree with everything you say. If you're looking for the most comprehensive collection of treatments and experience for CH, this is the place. If you're looking for a place where everyone will agree with everything you say....well...not so much. Undecided

Hey, if cannabis, in whatever form, works for you, then use it. The important thing is it works for you, not that we all agree that it works.

Joe
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