“It’s not an ache. It’s a demon from hell.” by Alfredo Parra 🔸

Impressions from the 21st Annual U.S. Cluster Headache Patient Conference, organized by Clusterbusters.

On the morning of the last day of the conference, E. was hanging out with other “clusterheads” outside the conference hotel when he started having a cluster headache attack. Before he could go back to his hotel room, J. offered E. his DMT vape pen. J. is chronic—he gets attacks every day—so he never goes anywhere without his vape pen. He has successfully aborted hundreds of attacks with DMT in the two years he's been using it. Many years ago, E. had done DMT recreationally, but he had never used it to abort an attack, despite having had cluster headaches for decades.

“Do a 2-second pull, and hold it in as long as you can,” said J. to E. A few seconds later, E. could feel some effects, but the pain was still there. So he took another 2-second pull. He then stared intently at a tree in front of him for about 30 seconds. Then, his face transformed. He smiled, in utter disbelief. He started laughing and crying. The pain was completely gone. He felt clear-headed. He had never felt the pain fizzle away so [...]

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:
October 12th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gYrYnzzcGm7oJ3Fp3/it-s-not-an-ache-it-s-a-demon-from-hell

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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