How did the migraines come about? Psilocybin mushrooms are known to cure cluster headaches. Not sure what the actual cause of it since I've never had one and haven't looked into it much, but my past favorite nootropic called Vinpocetine is also known to cure cluster headaches as well as tinnitus and many other things. It was one of the first nootropics I have ever tried so it's a special one in my heart. Right now I have no need for it but a bottle of it is in my cabinet just in case. Try Vinpocetine and report back here when your headache is gone!
Vinpocetine and anything that causes significant vasodilation will trigger very nasty migraines in me. The pain of a true migraine involves inflammation and vasodilation, irritating key major nerves in the brain. Bad bad bad.
Vasodilators can help people who get tension-type headaches because those headaches usually involve vasoconstriction. They are not migraines.
Different types of migraine have different causes and we don't even really know everything about them. However, in my own personal case, I know that I have a genetic mutation that somehow interferes with my brain clearing glutamate. Every problem I have outside of migraine (autistic and ADHD tendencies, sensory overstimulation, depressive/anxious/insomnia) can be traced back to a fundamental issue with too much glutamate, not enough dopamine (recently discovered to be a major regulator of glutamate), not enough GABA, maybe not enough serotonin, with excess acetylcholine and histamine. My brain is always "on" and is not very adaptable to change. It's gifted me with a nice IQ but cursed me in just about every other aspect of life, which is something I would gladly reverse if I could.
There is an interesting bit dealing with tyramine. Consumption of significant amounts of phenylalanine or tyrosine in food tend to trigger ugly migraines because of the tyramine that is synthed from them. Migraine brains seem to be hypersensitive to tyramine. Cutting back on these amino acids in the diet is not really an option because you need these to synth dopamine, and later, norepinephrine. So it could be that for some unknown reason, the phenylalanine -> tyrosine -> l-dopa -> dopamine -> norepinephrine -> epinephrine path and the phenylalaine -> tyrosine -> tyramine path are abnormal in migraineurs, where too much tyrosine is becoming tyramine and not enough tyrosine is going towards making l-dopa/dopamine.
I've always had blood pressure that settles at the low end of "normal", 100/50 to 90/50, never going above 120/60 even during periods of high stress, anxiety or stimulant consumption, indicating that my blood vessels may always be slightly dilated in their "normal" state.
I also seem to have a problem with producing mitochondrial energy and/or transporting it--which can make a brain tend towards excess extracellular glutamate, as well as fuck with your body's ability to break down histamine, acetylcholine, and synthesize other neurotransmitters--so that might be the ultimate bottom-line cause of most if not all of my problems. Which would be genetic.
In ten years of experimentation, the only things that consistently work to keep the frequency of migraine attacks low (to about 3-5 a month on average) are: regular sleep schedule, anything that keeps cellular energy up (this includes avoiding skipping meals, supplements that support mitochondrial energy and transport), things that keep dopamine up, things that keep GABA up, things that keep histamine down. Things that keep serotonin up are always hit-and-miss so now I tend to be very wary of them. I do best on low protein, high carb diets. I've always naturally gravitated towards that kind of diet without even realizing it, and when I deliberately change things to include more protein I always have a problem. Aside from getting phenylalanine and tyrosine from protein sources, there are other things that always trigger migraines if I get too much on a bad day: glutamic acid (duh), aspartic acid (acts as excitor at glutamate receptors), arginine (perhaps because it is a moderate vasodilator). I have repeatedly tested this with small doses of these aminos as individual supplements. Additionally, I cannot do protein powders of any kind, I've tried the whey, the hemp, the soy and even fucking collagen triggers migraines. Which really fucking sucks because I like to take tryptophan in the late afternoon when serotonin is low. I think it might have something to do with these being processed and isolated from other chemicals naturally occurring in the sources. Because I regularly drink soy milk, can eat a bowl full of edamame, and can tolerate most dairy (except super aged cheese).
And that's the short version of things.
As you can see, it's a mess.
Edited by Duchykins, 22 June 2015 - 02:39 AM.
