My mother suffered from cluster headaches recently (the worst pain you can endure in life they say).
Apparently mushrooms and LSD are unofficial treatments. When asked, her doctor encouraged her to use mushrooms ...
Apparently a non-psychedelic version of LSD could be made but it's difficult to justify spending millions in research with the official stance regarding drugs.
I know nothing about her diagnostic, but I have had severe migraine like that in the past. Manifests as a strong pain behind one eye and sometimes the neck. It's so strong you can't even think right, you just crawl to a dark room and wait it go away. You know it's coming when you start seeing visual artifacts and/or develop tunnel vision. If her symptoms are like that, read along.
In my case it was simply stress. Sleep deprivation, a lot of caffeine and stiff neck, jaw muscles all the time. It stopped overnight once I quit a stressful job, changed my lifestyle and cut back on caffeine. I didn't consulted with a doctor, because I knew I would be prescribed some heavy stuff. While I had the crisis, the only thing that worked to subdue the pain were muscle relaxants and a hot shower, headache/migraine drugs I've had already been prescribed did nothing, so I knew it was psychosomatic.
Take that with a huge grain of salt, as it's just one anecdote... but in the face of taking psychotropics at own risk, she might want to try that first.
My wife suffers from refractory migraine headaches - somewhat different from cluster headaches, but near neighbors on the chronic headache agony spectrum. I wish there were a clinical trial of 2-B-LSD she could join. Absent that, I'm building a TCDS system for her. Necessity & invention, etc.
I heard from a friend who gets bad migraines that you do not need to take a full dose, causing psychedelic effects, in order to get the relief/prevention. She said that a half dose prevented migraines for about two weeks. I do not know if the same strategy would work for cluster headaches, or even if it's a universally applicable characteristic of the drug, but if your mother is not the adventurous type or is unsure about tripping, she may want to try a smaller amount first to see if she can get the prevention without the mind-altering effects. Good luck in any case.
Yes it's true. That was a deciding factor to try it as she is against drugs for herself by fear of bad trip :)
The only downside (well except the breaking the law thing) is only that you have to be off the regular treatment to try it, so you may have to endure the pain for some days.
Apparently mushrooms and LSD are unofficial treatments. When asked, her doctor encouraged her to use mushrooms ...
Apparently a non-psychedelic version of LSD could be made but it's difficult to justify spending millions in research with the official stance regarding drugs.
I'm glad change seems to come, albeit slowly ...