After hearing horror stories from a friend about 2 day "mescaline induced headaches", I decided to do some research on his behalf. I followed a lead from a very old thread, and was steered towards Tryamine as the cause based on the experience possessed by a friend of Nexus member DreaMTripper.

I did some research, and apparently all the commonly consumed psychedelic cactus contain Tryamine, which is known to cause headaches or trigger migraines when consumed in large quantities. The mechanism behind this is something called the "Cheese effect", or "Cheese crisis" because aged cheeses are known to contain high levels of Tryamine. The effect of large quantities of dietary Tryamine are among other things hypertension, (high blood pressure), which can lead to awful headaches.

As evidence for this as the mechanism behind "Mescaline headaches", my friend reported to me that he ate an entire cheese pizza the night before his painful mescaline trip, and Nachos as his comedown snack made with aged extra sharp chedder cheese, (perhaps explaining the 2 day duration of his headache). On a more recent trip, he consumed no cheese and no tryamine rich foods prior to tripping and experienced no headache.

This leads me to believe that tryamine is the mechanism behind the dreaded "mescaline headache" and thus the headache can be avoided by abstaining from tryamine rich foods in the days leading up to a trip, and ensuring no MAOI's are consumed either, as they exacerbate the "cheese effect" caused by tryamine.

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on this and hopefully this can be a resource for future trippers who wonder why they have such a bad reaction to Mescaline and contemplate never doing it again for fear of the headache, as my fried was.

I use Ayahuasca very regularly, which as we all know contains inhibitors of MAO-A, yet i eat cheese all the time (i love my cheese), and i don't suffer from a hypertensive crisis or tyramine induced headache. If i'm not mistaken, i've heard Psilocybin can induce headaches, so can DMT, even Harmalas can by themselves. Hell, sometimes weed can even give me a headache.

I highly doubt his headache was due to tyramine.

From the ever reliable wikipedia:

"if one has had repeated exposure to tyramine, there is a decreased pressor response; tyramine is degraded to octopamine, which is subsequently packaged in synaptic vesicles with norepinephrine (noradrenaline)[citation needed]. Therefore, after repeated tyramine exposure, these vesicles contain an increased amount of octopamine and a relatively reduced amount of norepinephrine. When these vesicles are secreted upon tyramine ingestion, there is a decreased pressor response, as less norepinephrine is secreted into the synapse, and octopamine does not activate alpha or beta adrenergic receptors"

Perhaps because as you say you eat cheese ALL the time, you are less susceptible to having such a reaction. Considering the phenomenon of migraines is very individual, and has been correlated with high levels of dietary tyramine, it seems likely that individual's levels of tyramine resistance varies. If a person who eats cheese all the time, (and thus has a high tolerance), also has a naturally high tolerance to begin with, they would be less likely to experience ill effect.

It seems plausible to me though that if a person has a generally low Tyramine containing diet, a low tolerance to tyramine and then splurges on cheese prior to consuming tyramine containing cactus, this mechanism could be the cause of what are reportedly fairly common headaches resulting from mescaline use.

I've personally never experienced headaches during my extensive history of Psilocybin containing mushroom use, nor my DMT use, (although headaches on weed were fairly common). That is not to say there is not a chemical cause of headaches in certain people that use these drugs. I'm not saying the Tyramine mechanism causes headaches for everyone that uses mescaline, since a majority of people that use mescaline don't get headaches. But for those that DO get the headaches, I think this might be a possible cause and something worth considering for those that wish to use mescaline but do in fact get headaches from the drug.

Perhaps Corpus Callosum (our resident Doctor) will see this thread and confirm any medical indications

Its important to differentiate between mescaline and cacti extract. I doubt mescaline by itself will cause headaches although Ive never tried it so wouldnt know.
I had a nagging headache from parachuted cacti powder (actually more like spooned in with juice lol man that stuff sticks to the roof of your mouth!)

When my friend took mescaline and got such a bad headache it was in the form of extracted HCl salt, but apparently not very well washed because he took 500mg hoping for a strong trip and had what felt a lot more like a 250-300 mg trip instead. Still fun, he said, but the implication is of course that his mescaline was something like 50% pure, and considering the large amount of cactus he used to extract such a small amount of mescaline, the potential for large amounts of even trace alkaloids might have been pretty high.

I'm sure next time he will wash much more thoroughly which should solve the problem, but I imagine he will also avoid tryamine rich foods leading up to a trip as a precaution, because the 36 hours of headache was not worth the 6 hour headache free part before the pain set in.

I feel ya on the difficulties of consuming raw powder. To avoid the dreaded stir and chug method , (which is vile), I attempted to put it in gel caps once which seemed like a good idea beforehand, but ends up being such a ridiculous number of gel caps it becomes a challenge to consume. The main problem was the amount of water/tea that was required to choke down 50 1g capsules, and the ever so slight amount of cactus powder on the outside of the capsules that about 25 capsules in started to induce retching.

yikes! now I have a headache

I had no idea it was common to get headaches from mescaline. Good to know.

Me and my husband had few times peyotl tee, and the following day we had headaches, not excruciating but pretty strong. We don't eat cheese, and have good diet, low in tyramine...

Would like to know what to do about it, since I wouldn't do it if headaches are part of the process.

I don't think there has been much research in this area. So, i'd like to add in some anecdotal data of my own. For further analysis.

I am still slightly feeling a headache which I had leftover from MDMA use 30 hours ago. The pain is not excruciating but it was very present and strong. I experienced hyperthermia and severe headache. Since Mescaline and MDMA are related I think we might have a shared mechanism here. I didn't even take a severely high dose. I did neglect dosing up on tryptophan/magnesium/zink which I would normally do and never had headaches. I took a high dose of Vitamin B6 before 80mg was dosed and a few hits of weed and another 60mg after about 45 minutes.

The headache and hyperthermia only started after the mdma was starting to wear out which takes about 6 hours for me. Thing is, I have had headaches as a kid and it has always been localized to the right side of my skull. Another factor that I think is important is that from smoking a lot of weed my right eye will always turn blood-red. Even though my left eye is perfectly fine.

Last time I had this headache I took a protein shake and felt like there where tiny particles traveling through a band or vein on the right side of my skull. It didn't hurt it actually felt like being tickled from the inside. But it was very peculiar. A doctor might be able to use this information more properly than I can.

I think the pressure is oxidative stress. Which is more severe in some than in others. I would really like to adress this problem. And the fact that my right eye starts bleeding from smoking weed. Doesn't happen often when vaped though. So maybe Co2 or Co is a trigger for that.. I do know that Vitamin C doesn't quite cut it, yet.

I do think that B6 was involved. And perhaps the fact that I did not preload with Tryptophan. I did not because it normally results in Insomnia for me. This would make the problem much more complex though, which might not be useful. But I think we are dealing with complexity here since I can trace back the headache to since I was a kid.

Btw, an aspirine works as long as it lasts though. So if anyone has any mescaline headaches right now, I would simply advise you to take an aspirine.

Just wondering if you guys who experienced Mescaline headache also experience hyperthermia? It was best described as if heat is trapped in the head. The rest of my body feels fine but my head is very hot. My heartrate could jump to about 100 I think.

Hmm, I'll add some anecdotal evidence here.

Mescaline has triggered migraines for me post-trip every time I've taken it, and treating with sumatriptan works. I get (menstrual) migraines every few months, so I am definitely predisposed. Among children males and females suffer migraines at about the same rates, but most males outgrow it with adulthood. Infectedstyle sounds like he (he right?) had migraines as a kid based on the description, so maybe this is an issue for people who are predisposed already.

Yes I am Male, I do mean to suggest that we might be predisposed. I have long have the intuition that ADH is involved in my headaches (which are not so bad. They used to be more severe during summer as kid). I thought I may have some kind of hormonal inbalance. I still don't understand the workings of this hormone so i'm just throwing it out there, maybe someone more knowledgable can pick it up.

My gf has headaches during come down and maybe day after, after every psychedelic, including mescaline. I never do with any (or in general, not prone to headaches). No idea the reason for that.

There was an interesting paper posted by Snozz recently regarding headaches, though about psilocybin: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=55741

Coffee might help with the headaches, particularly if you're a regular drinker, and is reportedly a potential potentiater of mesc. I don't think I'd recommend using coffee to boost mesc effects if you're not a person who regularly drinks coffee on a daily basis and I could only see it being beneficial for come down headaches if used on the tail end where it would contradict the long awaited sleep most people would desire at that point. Just a thought though.

I have noticed headaches myself with my own mescaline use. It's not a massive issue, and mescaline does feel me feeling a little rough in the head and the gut the following day (although nothing as bad as a hangover).

I'd say I get slight headaches with most drugs, in fact. The only ones where I haven't really had any pain issues are cocaine and LSD. Cocaine is pretty understandable (in my more cokey days, I even used to do a line or ten the day after a trip, drinking binge, or mandy night to sort me out [SHANGHIGHER DOES NOT RECOMMEND THIS BEHAVIOUR]), and LSD has always been probably the easiest drug for me to take and for my body to process. Most days after LSD, the only physical after effects I'll feel are tiredness and the after effects of any other substance taken with it.