Aborting cluster headache attacks with DMT

A few puffs from a vape pen could stop your attack in seconds

Vaped DMT acts almost instantly, wears off in minutes and carries minimal health risks at the doses used (provided you first check for drug interactions). It can be vaped with a standard vape pen, typically small enough to fit in your pocket.

For a growing community of patients, DMT has become an indispensable tool; sometimes the only thing that reliably stops the pain. This guide was written for you: someone in serious pain, perhaps unfamiliar with DMT, looking for clear and comprehensive information.

DMT belongs to the tryptamine family: the same chemical family as sumatriptan, the most commonly prescribed cluster headache abortive. While clinical trials specifically on DMT are still underway,^[1] closely related tryptamines (psilocybin, LSD) have shown significant efficacy in research settings.^{[2] [3]}

DMT isn't a miracle cure: It's illegal in most countries, and it won't work for everyone. Oxygen, while bulky and pricey, is the gold-standard legal abortive; many patients use it on its own or alongside DMT. Check out our oxygen guide (TBD).

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What aborting an attack looks like

Aborting means stopping an attack once it starts. Here's the procedure at a glance.

From attack to relief in under a minute.

You sit down, take a puff from a vape pen (a small handheld device that heats the DMT into a vapor you inhale), and hold it in for 10+ seconds before exhaling. If the first puff works, you will notice it almost immediately. Within seconds, the pain will have stopped. If the pain hasn't stopped after 30 seconds, you can take another puff and hold it in again.

Because each puff is small and fast-acting, you control the dose: you take only what you need to stop the pain, nothing more.

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Hear from patients who use DMT

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References

1. ↩ Yale University / University Hospital Basel (2024). Acute analgesic effects of DMT on experimentally induced pain. ClinicalTrials.gov. NCT06180759
2. ↩ Sewell RA, Halpern JH, Pope HG Jr (2006). Response of cluster headache to psilocybin and LSD. Neurology, 66(12), 1920–1922. doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000219761.05466.43
3. ↩ Schindler EAD, Sewell RA, Gottschalk CH, Flynn LT, Zhu Y, Pittman BP, et al. (2024). Psilocybin pulse regimen reduces cluster headache attack frequency in the blinded extension phase of a randomized controlled trial. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 460, 122993. doi:10.1016/j.jns.2024.122993

Thanks Ed!