Therapeutic cannabis: a new drug to treat epilepsy?

Around 600,000 people suffer from epilepsy in France. Among them, more than 50% are under 20 years old. There are several types of epilepsy and some forms remain very difficult to treat. Patients live daily to the rhythm of seizures that remain disabling. The story of little Charlotte Figi gives hope, without forgetting the experiments underway in France. Read also: Osteoarthritis in dogs: how to relieve your pet?

Epilepsy: definition and symptoms

Epilepsy is a neurological disease that presents itself in various forms that are more or less serious and more or less disabling (partial seizures that are generally called "absences", tonic-clonic seizures with stiffness and convulsions, Dravet syndrome, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, etc.). Symptoms vary and vary from one patient to another and sometimes even from one seizure to another in the same patient. It is therefore a difficult disease to diagnose and treat. Among the symptoms of epilepsy, the most common are: eye rolling, loss of contact (absence), muscle rigidity, migraines, clonia, episodes of derealization, chronic fatigue, difficulty concentrating. There are many treatments that neurologists prescribe depending on the type of epilepsy diagnosed through in-depth examinations such asMRI and EEG (electroencephalogram). Sometimes, the examinations are not significant and the cause of the disorders remains unknown, this is called idiopathic epilepsy. Although medical advances have now made it possible to stabilize some patients and limit seizures and related symptoms, other patients are drug-resistant (medications have no effect).Faced with the drug resistance of his 3-year-old daughter, Charlotte Figi's father, who had nearly 60 seizures a day, decided to try everything by administering therapeutic cannabis to her, low in THC and concentrated in CBD . Very quickly, the little girl's condition improved dramatically.First media coverage of medical cannabis

Charlotte Figi was born in the United States in 2006 and died on April 7, 2020. From the moment she was born, her parents observed abnormalities and worried about her health. Quickly diagnosed with

Dravet syndrome , a form of severe juvenile epilepsy,Charlotte then has up to 60 epileptic seizures per day. She could neither speak nor eat nor walk. After trying numerous treatments without success, Charlotte's father decided to break the law and administer CBD oil to his daughter. Charlotte's parents noticed significant improvements such as a reduction in the frequency and strength of the seizures. Therefore, a variety of medical cannabis called Charlotte’s web was born and the little girl's parents created Realm of Caring, an association which helps patients who cannot finance their CBD treatment. In France, the drug Epidyolex is already on the market. However, it is difficult to access and is one of the medications that have special prescription conditions. Only neurologists and hospital practitioners can prescribe it and they must request authorization from the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM)to deliver him. Additionally, prescribers must demonstrate that all other alternatives have been studied and have been failures. CBD is therefore a path to follow. Read also: Cannabidiol: what are the reasons for its popularity? What is the difference between CBD and medical cannabis?

There

confusion between CBD and medical cannabis is common , but they are two different products. CBD is accessible to everyone and legal, despite a gray area. It can be purchased online or on the website.shop 321 cbd . You will find CBD products like hemp oil, resin and dried flowers. They contain very little THC (less than 0.2% as required by law).THE medical cannabis refers to cannabis-based treatments. They can therefore contain cannabinoids of all kinds such as CBD and the THC . THETHC is a psychotropic which is legally prohibited for marketing and consumption. Considered a narcotic, it is not legally accessible. However, some exceptions are made in specific and extremely rare medical cases. purple-ribbon-epilepsy-awareness

Several scientific studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of cannabis in patients with severe forms of epilepsy. However, a new study carried out by Israeli researchers questions the long-term interest. This study focuses on the addiction of CBD and therapeutic cannabis. Indeed, like most medications, the body gets used to it and for the benefits to last, it is necessary to increase the dosage.

Therefore, in order to assess the long-term effectiveness of cannabinoids, researchers followed a study to observe 92 drug-resistant patients aged 1 to 37 years old. These patients have not previously taken any substance cannabinoid base . They received daily, for three months, a cannabis oil extract containing mainlyCBD and a low amount of THC. For project leaders, adding the THC allows you to reduce the amount of CBD in the solution. After three months of the experiment, the scientists found that almost a third of the patients reported a significant reduction in the number of seizures, which confirms that therapeutic cannabis is beneficial. On the other hand, a quarter of patients developed an addiction to cannabis. However, this habituation could be reversed following a gradual reduction in the dose of CBD followed by a complete cessation of the treatment, before restarting the dose with the same dose as at the start of the study. In this way, the initial effectiveness was regained. Finally, to estimate the benefit-risk ratio, note that classic anti-epileptic drugs can also cause addiction in patients, which results in an increase in the dosage. To remember: medical cannabis is different from CBD . Products based onCBD are easily accessible online and present little danger. L' CBD oilis increasingly used to relieve symptoms of neurological diseases like epilepsy , although no official study demonstrates its effectiveness, unlike medical cannabis which remains difficult to access.Read also: Everything you need to know about CBD e-liquids