Psilocybin: the Trippy Treatment for Cluster Headaches?

They are known as some of the most excruciatingly painful headaches known to humankind—so severe in fact, that they have been dubbed “suicide headaches.” Yet, a growing number of cluster headache sufferers are finding relief from an unconventional source: the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms. Is psilocybin the trippy treatment for cluster headaches?

Cluster headaches announce themselves with little warning, unleashing a fiery, stabbing pain typically around one eye. The agony can last 15 minutes to three hours, with attacks recurring up to eight times per day during a cluster period that may last weeks or months. “It feels like someone is drilling a red-hot ice pick into your eye socket and wiggling it around,” described Jeremy Tucker, a 39-year-old IT professional from Boise, Idaho, who has endured cluster headaches since his teens. “The pain is just absolutely unbearable.”

For years, Tucker tried a cocktail of medications, oxygen therapy, nerve blocks, and even a surgery that implanted neurostimulators in his skull. Nothing could stop the onslaught. In desperation, he began researching unconventional treatments and came across reports of cluster headache patients finding relief with psilocybin—the naturally occurring psychedelic compound in certain mushroom species.

“I was at the point where I would have tried anything”

“I was at the point where I would have tried anything,” Tucker said. “I started microdosing mushrooms, taking just enough psilocybin to get a very mild psychedelic effect, and it was like a miracle cure. The headaches stopped almost immediately. “I started microdosing mushrooms, taking just enough psilocybin to get a very mild psychedelic effect, and it was like a miracle cure. The headaches stopped almost immediately.”

Tucker is far from alone in his experience. For over two decades, cluster headache patients have been sharing stories online of turning to illegal psilocybin mushrooms when approved medications failed them. Their accounts sparked interest from researchers to formally study psilocybin’s effects on the condition.

“We’ve heard so many anecdotal reports from cluster headache patients about psilocybin providing relief; it became an area we couldn’t ignore,” said Emmanuelle Schindler, a neurologist at Yale School of Medicine, who led one of the first clinical trials examining psilocybin for cluster headaches last year.

While her small phase 2 trial of just 14 patients did not find statistically significant evidence that psilocybin reduced headache frequency, Schindler said the results were promising enough to warrant further research.

“Several patients did seem to respond quite positively to the psilocybin treatment for cluster headaches.”

“Several patients did seem to respond quite positively to the psilocybin treatment” she noted. “We need larger studies, but this really opened the door to exploring psychedelics as a potential new therapy for cluster headaches.” Researchers are still uncertain exactly how psilocybin may prevent or abort the severe headache attacks. One theory is that the compound’s psychedelic effects essentially “reboot” the brain, allowing it to re-establish new neural pathways and connections disrupted by cluster headaches.

“Psilocybin seems to trigger a kind of neurological reset that can break the cycle of these headaches,” explained Bob Wold, a patient advocate who has used mushrooms to treat his own cluster headaches. “It’s like rebooting a computer that’s locked up.”While the scientific evidence is still emerging, many patients like Tucker say they have been forever changed by psilocybin’s effects—no longer fearing the next headache attack. “I don’t want to overstate it, but these mushrooms really did save my life,” Tucker said. “For the first time in over 20 years, I’m not constantly bracing for the next wave of horrific pain. I finally feel free.”

As research continues, both patients and scientists agree that psilocybin’s current illegal status remains a major barrier to making it an approved treatment option. But for those who have found rare relief through mushrooms, it’s a psychedelic trip they’re willing to take.