LSD Alleviates 'Suicide Headaches' 272
sciencehabit writes "Patients suffering from the agony of cluster headaches will take anything to dull the pain, even LSD, it turns out. Results from a pilot study reveal that six patients treated with 2-bromo-LSD, a nonhallucinogenic analog of LSD, showed a significant reduction in cluster headaches per day; some were free of the attacks for weeks or months. And some of these patients are still reporting significant relief more than a year after they were treated with the compound." I'm told, by people with reason to know, that the hallucinogenic variety has the same effect on cluster headaches.
Barbiturates work too (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Back to its roots (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. LSD is synthesized and is structurally similar to Ergotamine, which is a treatment for migranes. Hoffman was studying derivatives from ergotamine, one can safely presume he was trying to work out what about ergotamines structure causes the migrane relief, either to create a better drug, or to avoid some of the nastier side effects of ergotamine which unfortunately can be pretty savage.
Re:House, MD. (Score:5, Informative)