Cannabis And Epilepsy Video Transcript
Today we’re gonna be talking about cannabis and epilepsy. Cannabis has been used as a medicine for treatment of seizures for millennia and many different cultures and most recently in the modern world and in modern medicine it’s been used to treat children with specific forms of childhood epilepsy who failed many many drugs to control their seizures so I’m gonna tell you a little bit about how we think cannabis and epilepsy work and the most common ways that it’s used so CBD oil and cannabis medicines are really gaining traction as a potential anti epileptic treatment for children with epileptic disorders in childhood seizure disorders especially who’ve not responded to conventional drugs and there’s been quite a few high-profile cases in the media of children who are trying to get access to cannabis because it’s helped them reduce their seizures quite considerably or in some cases even really have no seizures for periods of time after really trying every drug on the market and one of the mainstays of therapy when it comes to cannabis and seizure control or epilepsy is CBD or cannabidiol that’s because CBD has been quite well studied as far as the cannabis plant molecules for its anti seizure activity so it has the ability to reduce seizure activity increases your threshold in a number of animal models in preclinical trials and in many many cases with children who have these epilepsy disorders that are very difficult to treat especially one called your vet syndrome and another one called Lennox gastro syndrome so what are we actually talking about like what products are people actually using when it comes to treating epilepsy with cannabis well both hemp derived CBD oils and medical cannabis with a slightly higher amount of THC have been used to treat different types of epilepsy generally what you do especially with it flipsie is you start with a very very low THC very very high CBD oil so generally speaking that’s a CBD oil sometimes even from hemp that has less than 0.2 or 0.3 percent THC sometimes if you’re starting with a medical product you might start with something that’s slightly higher in THC potentially a 1% THC with 18 to 20 percent CBD so again we’re talking about very very high CBD low THC forms of oil how it potentially works in the brain to help decrease seizures by a number of mechanisms one of them seems to be by a g-protein coupled receptor one of them seems to be by a serotonin receptor mechanism one of them we think is about by it something called Avenel Lloyd receptor and many many more so we’re still really learning about why CBD can actually work for seizure control when other drugs fail on average children who resort to medical cannabis and CBD have tried an average of 10 different antiepileptic drugs before they try CBD so we’re talking about really this is a last resort treatment but it actually works very very well for a number of patients there’s another form of CBD that’s actually been made by some pharmaceutical companies and only contains CBD it’s what’s called it CBD islip medication versus a full-spectrum CBD oil that contains other parts of the plant and even in those studies many patients have responded positively but in some cases especially in some of the case reports some that patients still do better on the full-spectrum CBD oil than they do on the the pharma base to CBD products so we’re still really learning what is best one of the things that patients always ask me about is well what about should I add any THC well generally with seizures we start out with high CBD very very low THC and then sometimes for very specific cases in some instances where people stop responding to the CBD we add a little bit of THC in an oil as well to the CBD and sometimes we get better seizure control again the reason for this again it’s very complex we have an idea of maybe that the CBD and the TFC are interacting at these different receptors in different pathways and they’re working what it’s called what in when it’s called synergy with each other in addition to THC another molecule that is quite useful that I’ve used in my medical practice with adults with epilepsy is something called THC a THC a is a non psychoactive so it doesn’t make you feel high form of a precursor to THC so it’s really useful in cases where you tried CBD by itself you’ve got maybe a partial response or really not met much response at all and you want to try something that’s not going to make someone feel intoxicated or high so that’s where THC a can be really handy in seizure control as well so we’re really just at the beginning of the research when it comes to full-spectrum CBD oil cannabis oil for seizure control and there’s so many compounds in the plant many of which may have anti seizure activity so we’re really just at the beginning of our understanding but we already know it can be very helpful in cases where other things have failed something that you have to keep in mind when you’re you know using CBD and cannabis for seizures is interactions with other drugs so one of the most well known ones is with a drug called Club Azam you can still use them together under close medical supervision but you have to check the drug levels well because sometimes the CBD can push out the drug levels and it can affect things like side effects for example in my own practice I don’t focus specifically on epilepsy but I definitely have treated a few standout cases in my patients who had epilepsy and seizure disorders who tried every drug Under the Sun were very disabled by their condition they couldn’t drive anymore many of them had really really low quality of life and we really house found and their brain function was severely affected by their seizures and after we added medical cannabis in they were able to decrease their other seizure medications improve their quality life vastly eradicate a lot of the side effects that they were getting like feeling sleepy and groggy and inability to communicate and medical cannabis for them really changed their life so I’m a really big believer that I can do great things in specific types of epilepsy especially that have been difficult to treat with other medications and what I’ve found when I treat patients with epilepsy and I add the medical cannabis to their treatment plan it’s not just the patient who benefits their whole family see the difference because it’s just the whole disease affects the whole family as a unit and these medications have made so much difference for the whole family so that’s why I’m really a believer in really trying this option for many patients with epilepsy and of course if you’re using medical cannabis or thinking about using it or thinking about using CBD even from hemp to treat a medical condition especially a serious one like seizures or epilepsy it’s really important to do it under the close supervision of your doctor who understands how to work with cannabis and your other drugs so if you enjoyed this video please like it and comment and share it with 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