Latest news with #CH
AsiaOne
4 days ago
- Business
- AsiaOne
Why These Buyers Chose Older Leasehold Condos—And Have No Regrets, Money News
"Old" and "leasehold" are Singaporeans' least favourite combination of words. We ourselves have seen that, despite numerous presentations on how leasehold can outdo freehold, there's just a strong reluctance to accept it: on some visceral level, many like to feel that they're paying for 25+ years of their lives for something permanent. So why did three of these homeowners we speak to decide to purchase not only leasehold condos, but older leasehold condos? Here are their stories: 1. Affordability issues when both spouses are self-employed CH is Malaysian but works in Singapore, and his wife is a Singaporean; he's currently awaiting a change in his citizenship status. The couple's main worry, when choosing their property, was twofold: First, qualifying for a loan was tougher for both of them. Banks apply a haircut of 30 per cent to variable sources of income, for Total Debt Servicing Ratio (TDSR) purposes. The TDSR, in turn, limits home loan repayments to 55 per cent of monthly income, inclusive of other debts. Because CH and his wife are both self-employed, their maximum loan amount was cut by a third; and this required them to put down a larger down payment. The second reason was the fear of losing clients, late-paying clients, and other cash flow issues faced by the self-employed. CH says that: "If one of us has a salary it's not so bad, but when it's both of us, it's possible both of us go through a dry spell at the same time." The affordability concern was such that, for a time, the couple even considered buying a condo in Malaysia instead. But this idea was eventually scrapped, as the couples' clients were all Singaporeans, and even CH's father happens to live in Singapore. The two had a difficult time finding a unit large enough, but at the same time cheap enough to meet tighter affordability limits. CH says they viewed five or six different projects, but were unimpressed until they found their unit on the East Coast. While they don't want to divulge the name, the couple says the condo dates back to 1986, and is close to East Coast Beach (in fact they can walk there). CH says: "At first we were surprised the agent wanted to bring up this condo, because it was leasehold and quite old. Also there are over 1,000 units, which we had specified we didn't prefer as we prefer privacy. But when we visited the view of the sea, along with the area being very private despite the condo's size, won us over. Furthermore the unit was around 937 sq ft, and it was around $1,279 psf. Our agent warned us that we were unlikely to find such a large unit with a sea view at that price, even though it was leasehold. After we tossed and turned for about a week, we couldn't get it out of our heads. So we went ahead with it, even though it was an older leasehold." The total cost, according to the couple, was under $1.2 million, leaving them more than sufficient funds to renovate and furnish without a loan. Even better, CH says it became possible to place the condo entirely under his wife's name, due to the lower cost. This leaves him with the possibility of buying another property, if it comes up in the future. Still, for the long term, CH says he's not really worried: 60 years is a long remaining lease for a couple already in their early forties. The two have no long-term plans to upgrade or move, and they may hold the condo to the end. 2. The privilege of living in the heart of Chinatown, until the en-bloc came SY is one of the few Singaporeans who has no qualms about older leasehold properties, because he has owned one and come out on top from it. When he was in his mid-thirties, SY and his spouse purchased a unit at Pearl Bank Apartment in Chinatown — today redeveloped as One Pearl Bank. At the time he made his purchase, he was given numerous warnings by his family and friends not to go ahead. The original Pearl Bank Apartment was built back in 1976; and by the time SY moved in (sometime in the 1990s) it already had a bad reputation: it was known that some vice workers rented out units there, and some of the common areas were not in good condition. SY says that: "We chose to stay because it was close to the temple which we frequent, so it was very convenient. Any time, day or night, there was all kinds of wonderful food to eat. I could just cross one road to buy anything I wanted, or to reach the Chinatown MRT. " When Pearl Bank was bought by CapitaLand in 2018, SY's decision was proven to be a good one. While he doesn't want to disclose the figures, SY does point out that - compared to two of his brothers and a sister who bought newer properties — his was the one that saw the best gains. (We did our own snooping around though: CapitaLand purchased Pearl Bank Apartments for $728 million, and the various units — which ranged from 1,323 sq ft to 3,339 sq ft, received between $1.8 million to $4.9 million for the sale.) SY even briefly considered buying a unit in the redeveloped One Pearl Bank, but unfortunately his living situation had changed, and he needed to be closer to his children. Nonetheless, he considers it one of his best decisions; and his sale proceeds more than covered the cost of his current resale condo. 3. Needing the size for a production studio as well as a home GT works in product design and prototyping, and his clients have ranged from toy companies to packaging firms. As he runs his own business, he wanted a home that was also versatile enough to act as his office and his showroom: "This is practical for me as I also meet clients in my home, and I have a gallery to show them my process and end-results," GT says. "So I made my needs plain to my agent from day one, and it was agreed we would probably be looking at leasehold, as I needed a lot of space but the budget was very fixed." When the agent showed him a 1,180 plus sq ft unit in Lakeshore, GT said he felt something "jump" in his mind. Despite viewing three other projects, he said: "I didn't find the others appealing because of cost, maintenance, or a layout that would take too much work to reno." For the Lakeshore unit, GT already had a clear idea in his mind: he would merge two of the bedrooms into a bedroom or office, and use the study space as a separate gallery from the living room, thus separating his work by theme. "When I already have such a strong impression I guess it's hard to let go," GT says, "And what sealed the deal was the price, which was exactly within budget." GT says the unit was about $1.6 million, which would be a minimal stretch after the sale of his previous two-bedder. GT says the lease is 99-years from 2002, which he doesn't feel is very old at all (most Singaporeans feel a condo is getting old when it nears 25). GT is open to the idea of upgrading again to a larger unit — but for now, he enjoys living so close to the convenience of Jurong East. [[nid:718256]] This article was first published in Stackedhomes.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
dacadoo Launches Generation 5 of Its Award-Winning Digital Health Engagement Platform
Zurich, CH, May 27, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- dacadoo, a global leader in digital health engagement technology since 2010 with over 100 granted patents, announces the launch of Generation 5 of its Digital Health EngagementPlatform (DHEP). This next-generation platform delivers a simpler, smarter, and more engaging experience to help organizations empower healthier living and drive sustained customer Smarter. More DHEP is the trusted platform used by leading insurers, health partners, retailers, and banks to improve health outcomes, deepen engagement, and power data-driven decisions. Generation 5 represents a significant evolution, shaped by client feedback, user insights, and market AI trends. dacadoo's features are available as white-label solutions and through API, allowing clients to integrate seamlessly within their own services and environments. Simplerdacadoo Generation 5 helps organizations boost user engagement and improve accessibility across diverse populations. To achieve this hyper-personalization, dacadoo introduces a new Discover page, a centralized content hub that makes health and wellness resources easier to find. The updated Me page, now featuring an Instagram-like layout, along with enhancements to the Track, Social, and Reward sections, improves navigation and streamlines interactions. The platform is fully compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA and the EU Accessibility Act, ensuring an inclusive experience for all users globally. dacadoo's DHEP is the trusted platform used by leading insurers, health partners, retailers, and banks to improve health outcomes, deepen engagement, and power data-driven decisions. Generation 5 represents a significant evolution, shaped by client feedback, user insights, and market AI trends. dacadoo's features are available as white-label solutions and through API, allowing clients to integrate seamlessly within their own services and environments. SmarterUsers receive clearer personalized guidance through tools like 'My Health Score Potential,' which highlights how they can improve their lifestyle and well-being, and what actions matter most. A new messaging framework and recommendation engine provide timely, personalized prompts. Coming later in 2025, dacadoo will roll out an Agentic AI feature to deliver proactive, personalized coaching at scale. More Engagingdacadoo Generation 5 encourages daily interaction with a configurable Me page, personalized onboarding flows, and a dynamic feed for news and highlights. Clients can tailor content, branding, and promotions across key pages, reinforcing brand alignment, creating hyper-personalization, and deepening the user experience. 'Over the past 15 years, we have focused on great digital health solutions and AI that evolve with their users,' said Peter Ohnemus, President and CEO of dacadoo. 'With Generation 5, we are raising the health and engagement bar again. It's not just about offering engagement features, but about creating an experience that is truly simpler, smarter, and more engaging!' Proven ResultsClients report a 37 percent increase in page views*1 and a 40 percent rise in time spent in-app*2. A recent independent study validated a 5 percent reduction in healthcare costs*3 for insurers using dacadoo's platform. Retail partners saw average order value increase up to 30 to 50 percent*4, with higher conversion rates on promoted products. Generation 5 is now live for new and existing dacadoo clients worldwide. With future-ready features like Agentic AI and hyper-personalized health services integration, dacadoo continues to set the gold standard for digital health engagement. References: *1,2,4 - : All performance metrics are based on anonymized, aggregated data from dacadoo client implementations across multiple industries. Client identities remain confidential in accordance with privacy agreements. *3 - : The impact of a lifestyle behaviour change program on healthcare costs: Quasi-experimental real-world evidence from an open-access mobile health app in the Netherlands About dacadoo dacadoo is a Swiss-based technology company that develops technology solutions for digital health engagement and health risk quantification. Our Enterprise SaaS based digital health engagement platform (DHEP) is a mobile-first solution that leverages behavioral science, AI, and gamification to help end-users improve their health outcomes while helping clients to improve customer engagement and loyalty through personalization. This platform is available in over 18 languages and can be licensed as a white label offering or through APIs to develop/enhance custom solutions. Our award-winning Risk Engine, which calculates relative risk on mortality and morbidity in real-time, is also available for license through APIs. dacadoo's global employees are committed to making the world a healthier place. We strongly value security and privacy, with an Information Security and Privacy Management System certified to ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 standards. Press inquiries dacadoo Masako Boskovski marketing@ Othmarstrasse 8. CH-8008 Zurich Switzerland Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
At a glance: What's in the UK-EU deal?
The UK and the EU have reached a new deal setting out post-Brexit relations on areas including fishing rights, trade and defence. The full details will be set out later. But here's a look at what we know is in the deal. Live updates and reaction to UK-EU deal UK-EU deal moves on from Brexit rows, Starmer says A new deal will keep the current status quo giving EU boats continued access to UK waters until 2038 The 2020 Brexit deal, which saw the UK regain 25% EU fishing quotas, was due to run out next year The UK will continue to agree yearly quotas with the EU and Norway and issue licences to control who fishes in its waters Later, the government is due to unveil a £360m "fishing and coastal growth fund" to invest in coastal communities In return for extending current fishing rules, the UK has secured a deal to reduce checks on food exports to the EU Officials will drop some routine border checks on animal and plant shipments to and from the EU The new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement means the UK can sell raw burgers and sausages back into the EU for the first time since Brexit A formal UK-EU defence and security pact has been established Both sides have been pushing for closer cooperation and information-sharing since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump has re-entered the White House The government says the agreement "paves the way" for UK-based arms firms to access the Security Action for Europe (Safe) - a £150bn EU fund providing loans for defence projects The UK and EU will link their carbon markets to avoid taxes on carbon-intensive goods like steel and cement travelling between the UK and EU The UK launched its own carbon system after exiting the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) The government says it will save £800m in taxes and shield British steel from EU tariffs, thanks to a UK-only deal worth £25m a year British holidaymakers will be able to use e-gates at more European airports When Brexit ended freedom of movement, it changed the rules for people travelling to European countries. Now, British passport holders can't use "EU/EEA/CH" lanes at EU border crossings A new passport system will make it easier for UK pets to travel, ending the need for repeat vet certificates The BBC understands some key aspects are still subject to further negotiation – such as the idea of a youth mobility scheme The government say any "youth experience schemes" would be "capped and time-limited" like deals Britain has with Australia and New Zealand What finally makes it into this package will set the agenda for the next set of post-Brexit negotiations early next year. Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.
Axios
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Taste Test: Malört candies don't disappoint
What started out as an April Fools' laugh, has turned into a confection bitter enough to make you cry. Why it matters: New Malört Sucks candies open the horrors of Chicago's favorite cult beverage to a whole new segment of the population: non-drinkers. The backstory: After creating a jokey social media post about fictional Malört candies last April 1, Malört maker CH Distillery got so many requests for the product it decided to launch real ones this year. What they're saying: "We are excited to bring Malört Sucks hard candies to our loyal fans across the country, giving them exactly what they asked for — another bad idea," CH CEO Tremaine Atkinson said in a statement. The verdict: These little suckers greet you with a butterscotchy sweetness that quickly gives way to notes of grapefruit peel and chloroquine. In other words, Malört fans will love them. Others will probably want to save these for pranks only.
The Guardian
23-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Cluster headaches are ‘the most painful condition on the planet'. Sufferers are going to extreme – and secretive
Peter was working late, watching two roulette tables in play at a London casino, when he felt something stir behind his right eye. It was just a shadow of sensation, a horribly familiar tickle. But on that summer night in 2018, as chips hit the tables and gamblers' conversation swelled, panic set in. He knew he only had a few minutes. Peter found his boss, muttered that he had to leave, now, and ran outside. By then, the tickle had escalated; it felt like a red-hot poker was being shoved through his right pupil. Tears flowed from that eye, which was nearly swollen shut, and mucus from his right nostril. Half-blinded, gripping at his face, he stumbled along the street, eventually escaping into a company car that whisked him home, where he blacked out. Every day that followed, Peter, then in his early 40s, would experience the same attack at 10am, 2pm and 6pm, like perfect clockwork. 'Oh God, here it comes,' he'd think to himself, before fireworks exploded in his temple and the poker stabbed into the very roots of his teeth, making him scream and sometimes vomit. 'It just grows, and it thumps, and it thumps, and it thumps with my heartbeat,' said Peter, recalling the pain. Peter had experienced these inexplicable episodes since he was a kid, always in the summer. An attack left him shaking and exhausted, and waiting on the next bout was a kind of psychological torture – within the short respites, he dreaded the next. Once, when Peter felt one starting, he threw on his shoes and sprinted through the streets of south London. He didn't care which turns he took. Maybe if he ran fast enough, his lungs full of air, he could outrun the thing. His heart pumped in his chest, more from fear than the exercise itself. When the pain escalated to an unbearable pitch, he slowed to a stop, dry heaving, and sat down to press on his eye. He was three miles away from home. In 2016, while experiencing attacks that made the word headache seem bitterly inadequate, Peter saw his National Health Service general practitioners three to four times a week. He tried to describe his clockwork cycles, the agony – and they seemed to think that he was making it up. Multiple doctors diagnosed him with chronic migraine, but the migraine medications they prescribed did nothing. 'I was getting desperate,' Peter said when we first spoke in November 2023. 'I actually told the doctors, after my fourth week of coming back, like, 'I'm ready to fucking kill myself here. I need someone to take some ownership here, because none of you, none of what you're doing is helping.'' Finally, Peter paid for a private neurologist who diagnosed him with episodic cluster headache (CH), or what experts have nicknamed 'suicide headaches'. CH is a rare headache disorder that affects up to 0.1% of the global population. More men are diagnosed with CH than women, though women might be more likely to be misdiagnosed with migraine due to their reports of severe pain not being taken seriously. People with CH have rated the pain at 9.7 out of 10 – worse than childbirth at 7.2, a gunshot wound at 6 and a migraine at 5.4. Right now, much of the limited research on CH is happening in the US. Cluster headache patients are 20 times more likely to take their own lives than the US average. More than half of American cluster headache patients have considered killing themselves, and almost 20% have lost a job due to their debilitating condition. Still, episodes are often dismissed as 'just headaches' by family, employers and doctors. Patients see neurologists who aren't aware that CH exists, and even headache disorder experts still don't understand how CH operates in the brain – or how to make it stop. Instead of trying to tolerate a level of chronic agony that doesn't feel survivable, patients with CH have taken to experimenting with their own pain, their own bodies and psychedelic drugs. On a Reddit forum called r/clusterheads, people with CH from around the world have built a subculture around unconventional home remedies to stop or lessen their pain. Some chug multiple Red Bulls or 5-Hour Energy when they feel one coming on. Others swear by large doses of vitamin D, or dunking their head in a bucket of ice water. Some start masturbating – anything to physically shock their body out of an attack. Many report self-injurious acts in desperate attempts to relieve the pain, like banging the side of their head against a wall. 'My wife has to stop me from gouging out my eye with a spoon,' one patient told me. The 'clusterheads', as many people with CH call themselves, post the results of their self-experimentation on the subreddit and compare notes. They commiserate, too. 'Mid-30s female. Pain is … worse than childbirth or tooth pain … it's like my head has exploded into an electric storm,' reads one such post. Caregivers, many of whom are traumatized by having to watch their loved ones in distress, log in seeking advice. Multiple clusterheads write that they have developed a phobia of going to sleep, as attacks often occur at least once at night, thought to be triggered by the REM cycle. When someone writes that they can no longer deal with the pain, others encourage them not to give up. That kind of support can be life-saving – one moderator of the subreddit, who identified himself as Sean L, believes it so crucial that he said he dedicates two to three hours every day to responding and offering advice to suffering clusterheads. Sophia Lorenzo, a DJ in Austin, Texas, found r/clusterheads six years ago and relies on the online community as she lives with episodic CH. 'Knowing that other people are going through it too, it makes me feel less alone. Like I'm not crazy. That this will pass. The community has really saved me in more ways than one,' Lorenzo, 36, said. Like Peter, Lorenzo was misdiagnosed with migraine for years by her doctors in Texas, and was prescribed seizure medication that didn't work. In the midst of unmedicated cluster attacks that made her scream, vomit and black out, she sometimes hit herself on the painful side of her head. 'I was violent with myself at first,' she said. On the subreddit, clusterheads discuss treatments for CH: how to obtain a prescription for them, and their shortcomings. High-flow medical oxygen is the only known, reliable method of aborting an attack that works for 74% of CH patients. However, many neurologists in the US don't know how to prescribe oxygen for CH, because it's not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. When oxygen is prescribed, the tanks are often an out-of-pocket expense that many patients cannot afford. When Lorenzo was at last correctly diagnosed with CH in 2015, the insurance provided by her local musician health alliance did not cover her oxygen. Triptan drugs, a class of migraine medication, can abort CH attacks but are not advisable to take more than 10 days a month for risk of organ damage. Lorenzo took triptans regularly for five years until a doctor told her they were damaging her kidney health. Clusterheads also believe that taking triptans for too long can make an episodic patient 'go chronic', eliminating periods of remission between cluster cycles, which is their worst nightmare. In 2019, Emgality became the first-ever drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of both migraine and cluster headache, and it works for many patients. However, some clusterheads say the once-monthly injection can take months to take effect, at which point their CH cycle might already be over. Clusterheads want something that can flip a switch in the brain and turn the clusters off. Presented with less than ideal pharmaceutical options, most are now urging each other to try magic mushrooms. In the summer of 2021, Peter's cycle didn't stop as it usually did at the six-week mark. The neurologist had prescribed Peter triptan tablets, and he was popping up to three a day to stay semi-functional while holding down his casino job. He had the pills stashed in every jacket, in the pockets of his jeans, in his car's glove compartment, terrified of an attack starting without having one on hand. Six long months passed. In early 2022, the casino was forced to close its doors, its finances suffering from the pandemic. Peter suddenly had no income, and his marriage felt strained. His wife didn't understand how he could be so affected by something as mundane as headaches. Peter no longer felt like the same person she had married. She asked him for a divorce, and he moved into a flat outside of London to be closer to his elderly father, whose health was rapidly declining. That summer, he entered the 11th month of his cycle. Over-taking triptans for a six-week episode is one thing – taking them for nearly a year is another, and Peter's tally was over 1,000 tablets. He felt constantly sick. 'For that period of time, the only comfort I had was the thought that, if this gets too bad, I can just end it. And it wasn't a threat, it was just … a promise of release. I won't have to go through this anymore,' he said. Alone in his flat, Peter turned to the internet. He soon came across r/clusterheads, and with some shock, realized that these people were experiencing the same thing as him. What's more, there was a sense of optimism there: multiple clusterheads were happily reporting that they had 'busted' their cluster cycles using magic mushrooms. Peter hadn't taken a psychedelic drug since a bad LSD trip at a party when he was 17, but he was prepared to try anything. He found a seller in London and bought 12 grams of dried psilocybe mushrooms. (The possession of magic mushrooms, fresh or not, is illegal in the UK and carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison. For this reason, Peter is using a pseudonym.) Peter planned to follow the busting regimen used by others on Reddit: three low doses, taken five days apart. He took his first two grams of magic mushrooms on a Sunday morning in July 2022. He felt a little odd about using the drug, and promised himself not to enjoy it. He turned on a cricket tournament on the television. The shrooms kicked in, and five or six hours flew by. Peter realized that he hadn't had an attack all day. Pleasantly surprised, he went to bed. To his shock, the next five days passed uneventfully. 'Then, I hit it again. This time, I just laid down, listened to music, didn't give myself such a hard time as before, and it was a bit more enjoyable,' he said. 'Not a peep in my head since.' The cycle busted just before its first anniversary. 'And with any luck,' Peter said, 'I may have conquered this thing.' In 1998, a guy from Scotland with the username 'Flash' posted on the early internet forum that he had taken LSD at a party and then subsequently skipped his next CH cycle. As the sociologist Joanna Kempner chronicles in her 2024 book Psychedelic Outlaws, Flash then tried drinking magic mushroom tea at the beginning of an attack. The pain, to his delight, dissipated within minutes. He posted these findings to Others on the forum, skeptical but willing to try it out, began to report similar experiences when they drank magic mushroom tea. Bob Wold, a coach for his kids' Little League team in Illinois, was living through the depths of a CH cycle when someone from the forum shipped him a box of dried mushrooms. According to Kempner, he steeped them into a tea, watched a mesmerizing Fourth of July firework show, and successfully busted his cycle. In 2002, Wold created – the grandfather forum to the r/clusterheads subreddit – to compile the findings of the community's self-experimentation with psychedelics. At the time, institutional psychedelic research had been largely abandoned in the US in the wake of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which criminalized hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, MDMA and LSD as schedule 1 controlled substances. Though the group also experimented with LSD and MDMA, they focused most of their energies on magic mushrooms, which carried less societal stigma. Within a few years, the community landed on a cycle-busting regimen that seemed to work for most people, most of the time: three doses ranging from just a microdose to three grams of shrooms, taken five days apart, preferably at the outset of an expected CH cycle. Some successfully used the regimen to stay in remission for years. Emmanuelle Schindler, assistant professor of neurology at the Yale School of Medicine and medical director of the Headache Center of Excellence at the nearby Veterans Affairs hospital, was a graduate student studying the pharmacology of psychedelics when she first came across No one was conducting this level of research within American medical institutions: hundreds of patients using themselves as subjects to test the dosing and timing of psilocybin for best efficacy in aborting CH attacks and cycles, while trying to fix certain variables, like triptan usage. More than stopping attacks as they came, these citizen scientists wanted to 'cure' CH itself with psychoactive drugs. Cluster pain attacks the large trigeminal nerve, which snakes from the eye socket down into the jaw, but little else is known about how CH actually works. Schindler found the disorder's strange patterns fascinating. Why the clockwork episodes? Why do attacks have such a violent onset, only to dissipate completely within 15 to 180 minutes? Why do some people have chronic CH that forgoes episodes altogether? Using Wold's data, directly sourced from 493 adults with cluster headache on Schindler co-authored a survey study that found 35.5% of subjects used 'illicit substances' to treat themselves. The 2021 study was titled You Will Eat Shoe Polish If You Think It Would Help. Next, Schindler directed the first-ever randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trial in the US on psilocybin for the treatment of cluster headache patients. The significance of this, for the clusterhead community, cannot be overstated – there were very few studies on CH to begin with and no controlled trials in the US that set out to prove what clusterheads have theorized for decades: that psilocybin is an effective treatment for CH. (Psilocybin is approved for research by the FDA in the US, but not for medical use. Researchers in the UK must apply for a license to use the drug in studies at additional expense and delay.) For the first trial, published in November 2022, Schindler gave patients in the midst of a cluster cycle either psilocybin or a placebo, and then tracked their attacks for the next eight weeks. In an extension trial, she repeated the experiment, giving all 10 returning patients psilocybin. The results were highly suggestive: three doses of 10mg of psilocybin taken five days apart – the exact regimen developed by Clusterbusters in the early 2000s – cut patients' average of 18.4 weekly cluster attacks in half. A small Danish study published in January 2024, using a similar psilocybin dosing regimen, further confirmed Schindler's results. 'Clusterbusters … is how things started, because it certainly didn't start with me. I've had people ask me how I thought of the idea to use psilocybin, but it's been out there for decades already,' Schindler said. Scientists cannot say for certain why psilocybin might be an effective treatment for CH. But they aren't exactly surprised that it works for some patients, said Christopher Gottschalk, the chief of neurology at the Yale School of Medicine. Psilocybin activates serotonin receptors in the brain in the same way that triptans and other migraine medications do. Scientists suspect this chemical reaction rewires one's circadian rhythm in a way that no existing medication can, preventing cycles long-term. Whatever mind-bending trip a patient takes while on the drug seems to be merely a side effect – a fun time, one hopes, but ultimately unnecessary to the treatment. Even a microdose has worked for patients. 'It'll probably take the rest of my career to find out how it's working,' Schindler said. While presenting her research at a New England symposium for headache research in March, Schindler told her peers that it was difficult to recruit patients with a rare disorder who were willing to participate in hallucinogenic studies, and discussed the ethical issue in giving patients a placebo rather than treatment as they suffered torturous cluster attacks. She also emphasized the need for continued funding. Since the Trump administration froze funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in January, hundreds of studies reportedly have been terminated and the NIH has announced a plan to cut billions of dollars from labs and universities across the country – including Schindler's. Gottschalk and others take note when Robert F Kennedy Jr, who now oversees the FDA, expresses enthusiasm for psychedelic research, though that is hardly a promise of money in the next four years. Schindler is still applying for NIH funding. But even before the cuts, she relied on grants from private foundations with interest in psychedelics to support her work because funding for headache disorder research is simply hard to obtain. If NIH funding should be doled out proportionately to make the biggest impact for the most Americans, then research on migraine – the leading cause of disability for young women – is currently funded 10 times less in the US than it should be, according to Gottschalk. That makes CH all the more underfunded. 'In the last 25 years, the NIH has contributed something like less than $20m to anything even remotely related to cluster headache, which is crazy considering that, although, yes, it affects a small percentage of the population, it is also, as we now know, the single most painful condition on the planet,' Gottschalk said. On 18 March, 250 cluster headache and other headache disorder patients gathered on the Capitol steps in Washington DC for Headache on the Hill, an annual event put together by the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy (AHDA) and Clusterbusters. One mother flew in from Texas with her young daughter, who has suffered multiple headache disorders since she was a toddler. In a Texas congressman's office that afternoon, the group asked a staffer for the representative that $30m in NIH funding be given to Headache Centers of Excellence across the US, like Schindler's, for research. The staffer told the group that he would pass their ask along, and said that the Trump administration might have 'made a mistake' in cutting NIH funding so severely from US labs. Later, in a small discussion group of about 30 non-migraine headache disorder sufferers, someone asked who had been diagnosed with PTSD due to the pain they lived through. Almost everyone raised their hand. Several hours after Schindler presented her research at the symposium, Wold took the stage in a baseball cap to receive a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to headache disorder research. He recounted a story about a frustrated doctor who, having exhausted his list of medications, prescribed a .357 revolver to his friend with cluster headache. He implored the audience of New England scientists to study psychedelics for CH. Some attendees at the symposium think the FDA might be more receptive to considering a non-hallucinogenic drug, such as BOL-148. Essentially LSD engineered to be non-hallucinogenic, the compound was first tested in Germany in 2010 to treat CH. When administered the drug three times, five days apart, four out of the five participating CH patients went into remission. DMT vape pens, an increasingly popular psychedelic, were also of interest. Reports have circulated r/clusterheads and Clusterbusters, especially in the past year, claiming that one or two puffs can abort a cluster attack in less than one minute. Four different people with CH who tried vaping DMT told me the same (in confidence, as DMT is an illegal drug in the US and UK). CH patients say they are increasingly using DMT as their abortive and psilocybin as their preventative. Once again, Schindler will collaborate with citizen scientists to conduct a survey study, this time on DMT use. Wold isn't any more optimistic that magic mushrooms will be approved by the FDA to treat CH than he was 25 years ago. Even if they were, how helpful would the FDA's approval be for CH patients? The FDA's drafted guidance for the clinical use of psilocybin, which suggests how it might be regulated for public use in the future, recommends that two trained professionals are present to administer the drug. Wold emphasizes that CH patients would need it on demand and at home to be effective. However, many argue that until psilocybin is approved for medical use, it will never be an equitably accessible solution. Many US patients fear a misdemeanor charge for possession of psilocybin, or a felony charge for cultivation – a fear echoed in other countries including the UK. Kempner and people within the community point out that those publicly discussing their at-home psychedelic use are disproportionately white, and therefore less likely to be targeted by law enforcement than Black and brown CH patients. Wold estimates that about half of the CH community still refuses to try psychedelics or any other drug that is not approved by the FDA and prescribed by a doctor. This stance is understandable, and one Peter shares. When he's holding a bunch of dried mushrooms in his hand, guessing at the amount of pure psilocybin they contain, he would prefer that a doctor, not a person on Reddit, tell him how much to take. 'As nice as the citizen science part of it is, we need professionals to give us definitive advice. And that, as drastic as it sounds, would save lives,' Peter said. Every six months, in the summer and winter, Peter takes shrooms. He hasn't had a single CH cycle since he busted his 11-month episode three years ago. Nevertheless, years of unmedicated cluster attacks took a toll, and Peter is currently in treatment for complex PTSD. 'I didn't know why I couldn't enjoy things anymore,' he said. 'I find myself either in fight or flight, either angry or scared all the time. I don't find a middle ground where I'm content or happy.' Peter believes he has lost mental function due to overmedicating for almost a year with triptans. He often breaks off mid-sentence in conversation, and tries to scribble down the thought with pencil and paper before it dissipates into air. 'I can't hold a thread of thought for longer than 10 or 15 seconds anymore,' he said. Apart from the clusters, Peter hopes the magic mushrooms will also do something to ease the symptoms of his PTSD and anxiety that he feels. For his next dose, in June, Peter plans to take two grams of golden teachers and walk over to the woods by his place. He'll put in headphones and play a song he enjoys. When the shrooms kick in, light will trace itself across his line of vision, as if through the slow exposure of a camera shutter. As his eyes follow the path, something behind them will soften. The color of the leaves will flicker, and nothing will hurt. Sammie Seamon is a writer and MFA candidate at New York University. She has episodic cluster headache. This story was reported with support from the Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
