Following a clinical study in Berlin, patients with frequent cluster headaches treated with a non-hallucinogenic version of LSD reportedly experienced relief for weeks and even months.
While there is no clear reason behind such cluster or “suicide” headaches, they are known to cause unbearable pain, usually involving one side of the face.
Patients compare the pain to the feeling of someone trying to pull their eye out. Moreover, this monstrous affliction may occur in multiple throughout the day, in bouts lasting many weeks.
Unfortunately, because there hasn’t been a definite cause ascribed to such attacks, there is no cure.
Nevertheless, certain patients apparently managed to alleviate some or all of the pain via inhalation of pure oxygen, verapamil (used for cardiac arrhythmia) or triptans, taken for migraines.
In addition, as noted above, all patients in the LSD study successfully used the substance to minimize pain, while five individuals claimed to have (temporarily) cured themselves all together.
Of course, the fact that LSD being used to help ease pain and other illnesses is no surprise at all. The LSD discoverer himself, Albert Hofmann, was the first to synthesize, ingest and experience the broad effects of LSD.
Although Hofmann worked on various other projects, he wrote many books and participated in numerous case studies regarding the drug’s use in psychotherapy, alcoholism, end-of-life anxiety as well as in treatments against chronic pains.
Unsuprisingly, many governmental organizations believe LSD offers no positive effect for any area of medicine, and therefore classify it merely as a recreational drug.
[Via ScienceMag]
