Kids and Cannabis: Why Doctors in Canada are Looking to the Drug for Treatment

Kids and Cannabis: Why Doctors in Canada are Looking to the Drug for Treatment

Suffering from seizures can be a debilitating condition to live with. If medication doesn’t work, many try cannabis oil as an alternative seizure treatment.

According to the Mayo Clinic, most people who suffer from epilepsy can become seizure-free, however, by taking just one anti-seizure medication.

But not everyone can be helped. And when traditional medications fail, the outcome can be devastating.

Take Sean Bellefeuille for example. The 13 year-old teen from Ottawa, Canada has suffered from daily seizures since he was two months old, and his family has been fighting to find a solution ever since.

Bellefeuille’s condition doesn’t respond to prescribed anti-seizure medications, and sometimes he can suffer up to 40 seizures a day.

But the teen, who is unable to talk, feed himself, dress himself or toilet himself due to developmental delays incurred by his epilepsy, has experienced progress in the last year, according to a report on cbc.ca.

 

He said ‘mom’ for the first time, and threw a regular temper tantrum, two firsts for this positive, grinning boy.

Why the advancements? His parents say they have come after trying cannabis oil as an alternative seizure treatment.

Related: Canadians Can Now Grow Medical Marijuana at Home

And they are not alone in believing in the power of fringe science. CBC.ca states that researchers at Toronto’s world-renowned Hospital for Sick Children are getting ready to conduct the first clinical trials that will use cannabis extract to treat children like Sean who suffer from severe epilepsy that can’t be controlled by the current medication on offer.

Will the results be groundbreaking? Time will tell.

Currently, up to 30% of people who suffer from seizures don’t respond to the available anti-seizure drugs.

Photo Credit: HQuality/Shutterstock

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