Tag Archives: cluster

Criminally in Pain – Update 2

Those following my interest in Cluster Headache research and the broader issues of illegal drugs in pain control and other conditions (Criminally in Pain and Criminally in Pain – Update) may like to check out two recent articles from New Scientist magazine (for the first of the online articles you will need a NS subscription).

In an interview with Amanda Gefter (NS 30Aug 2008), Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) shared his hope that trials on the use of MDTA (Ecstacy) for the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may result in the drug receiving prescribed drug status.

This would represent something of a flagship breakthrough in the US; one likely to ease the path for other controversial treatments such as psilocybin for cluster headache. It would also represent a significant shift in what Doblin sees as the “the fear, the paranoia and the pathology of how the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] looks at things”. In this regard, the installation in November of a Democratic administration under Barack Obama, whose supporters, Senators Kennedy and Kerry, in 2007 endorsed the setting up of a medical marijuana facility, would be seen as a good thing – albeit politically motivated. Doblin shared the commercial insight that irrespective of the legal position there is still the task of motivating pharmaceutical companies to develop treatments based on drugs that are often both unpatentable and competing with their own products.

On a personal note, during my first visit to Venice Beach last week, it was a depressing endorsement of the ‘anti’ lobby to find hot-pantied girls with cannabis plant wristbands openly soliciting passers-by to partake of ‘medical marijuana’. Fascinating stretch of beachfront, but not helping the science go forward.

The second feature by Rachel Nowak (NS 6Sept 2008) describes the inadequate provision of opioids for the treatment of pain in terminal patients living in countries outside Europe and the USA. Nowak refers to issues addressed at two recent forums: the World Congress on Pain, and the World Cancer Summit, and cites the statistic that less than 1% of Indians get the morphine they need. Key messages are that the emphasis has tended to be on prevention of abuse rather than the positive applications of opiates (some resonance here with the previous article) , and that restricting prescription priviledges to doctors only is unworkable in regions of Africa and Asia.

Latest Update 15th September 2008

Federal Court Rules Against Bush Administration’s Subversion of California’s Medical [Cannabis] Laws

See full article here

Criminally in Pain – Update

With reference to my post Criminally in Pain, this Guardian article shows just how messed up the medicinal cannabis story has become in the USA. In a nutshell: the State endorses, the Federal Government prohibits. Not helping the debate over Psilocybin and headaches.

Latest position 15 September 2008

Federal Court Rules Against Bush Administration’s Subversion of California’s Medical [Cannabis] Laws

See full article here

Criminally in Pain – When Politics Meets Medicine

 

Earlier this year I captured some thoughts on the plight of cluster headache sufferers and issues raised by research into a particular drug for its treatment.   I’ve updated the original article with only a few changes as, unfortunately, nothing much seems to have progressed….

While society vacillates over the role of controlled drugs in medicine, the devastating pain of cluster headache is driving some sufferers to the ‘magic’ of the psilocybin mushroom, turning them into lawbreakers of the highest order.

More Than A Headache

Imagine being taken out of normal life for two or three months every year and, for an hour or more every day, having metal spikes driven through your eye socket and into your brain – all with no anaesthetic!

cluster headacheThe metal spikes are dilating blood vessels pressing against the trigeminal nerve, sending an acute, disabling pain down the side of your head; but the analogy well describes cluster headache – a rare but devastating condition for its 10,000 or so UK sufferers.

Drugs are of some help, when they work, but side effects can be serious and unpleasant.  As a result, some self-tagged ‘cluster heads’: a highly motivated collective of networked self-helpers, are pushing the boundaries on what they’re prepared to try for some respite.  And that can include self-medication with unconventional substances like the psilocybin found in ‘magic’ mushrooms, a practice carrying its own side-effects – of a legal nature.

There are similar, more widely publicised, issues around medicinal cannabis, another drug that despite its illegality sufferers find effective for a variety of conditions from nausea to multiple sclerosis.

It’s not just recreational consumption of the psychedelic neurotransmitters psilocybin and psilocin found in the mushrooms that’s banned, but serious research too.  That’s the case in the USA and the UK, where, as a Class A drug, psilocybin users and would-be researchers alike risk lengthy seven-year prison terms.

Despite this gloomy background, there was a ray of hope in 2006, when Harvard researchers Dr Andrew Sewell and Dr John Halpern published survey results taken from 53 cluster sufferers who were also illicit users of psilocybin and LSD.

Psilocybe cubensis (Wikicommons)

The positive indicators from the study were put forward as justification for full clinical trials, with a view, ultimately, to the drug attaining legal prescription status.  Yet, two years on in 2008, with the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) still refusing trials,  it doesn’t look like psilocybin will be joining the list of approved cluster headache remedies afterall.

 Sewell and Halpern put the reluctance down to over politicisation of the ‘War on Drugs‘.  And for sure, this does look like an inflexible policy approach holding back the valid scientific study of psychedelics, leaving legitimate patients as the real victims.

Until that changes, probably the best advice for sufferers persisting with mushroom self-medication is to keep one bloodshot eye firmly on the door.

Find Out More

Here’s a video of a guy suffering a Cluster Headache attack. Not pleasant.

 

OUCH – Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headache

www.clusterheadaches.org.uk

www.clusterheadaches.com

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

Also see: “The Effects Of Psilocybin And LSD On Cluster Headache: A Series Of 53 Cases.” Abstract.

Sewell, R. Andrew, M.D.; Halpern, John M., M.D. National Headache Foundation’s Annual Headache Research Summit. February, 2006.

UPDATES AND RELEVANT LINKS

Sept 2010

Psilocybin and cancer (article in LA Times, September 2010)

Feb 2013

Interesting video interview from February 2013 that discusses use of psychedelic drugs and particularly psilocybin for medical applications including treatment of depression and helping end-of-life cancer patients: Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris – Psychedelics as Medicine | London Real
http://www.londonreal.tv/episodes/dr-robin-carhart-harris-psychedelics-as-medicine/

 

Feb 2017

In The Atlantic: The Life-changing magic of mushrooms   https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/12/the-life-changing-magic-of-mushrooms/509246/?

 

Picture ‘Headache’ copyright Erin Conel Jones

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