hi,

I have a friend who is epileptic. She doesnt seem to get on well with conventional epilepsy medications. I have heard that cannabis can help people with epilepsy and even help them control their seizures and mentioned it to my friend. She watched the horizon doc on cannabis which also mentioned cannabis and epilesy and she has since asked me how she would go about using cannabis to help with her seizures.

does anyone know more about this or does anyone actualy use cannabis to help them with their epilepsy? How should she use it, would she have to smoke cannabis everyday or when she feels a seizure coming on? She doesnt want to spend 24/7 stoned so any info would be appreciated.

gg

I know a young lad that's epileptic, he never got on with the doctor meds they gave him, some form of heroin afaik. He reckoned the pot was way better for him and a big reduction in seizures.

Also, there's a piece by Mozart that is supposed to help reduce seizures, it's a piano duet and somehow keeps the brain busy, catalogued as K448 I think. Try googling 'the Mozart effect'.

Cheers for that lazi, i will definatley look the mozart thing up!

How does the lad you know use the canna to reduce his seizures? does he use a few times a day, once a day or just when he feels he is going to have a seizure? this is the part i am most unclear about. I myself use canna to control my high anxiety levels by smoking when i feel an anxiety attack coming on but epileptics dont always know when they are going to have a seizure, or may get warning signs only a few mins/seconds before a seizure happens.

Thanks for the reply

gg

hi i hve epilepsy and i think it helps with me cos i tend to hve seizures wen im stressed or angry and after a seizure i get quite aggresive just after i start wakin up after one and find cannabis to relax me and hve some before i go to bed so i hve a good sleep as tht is important for peoplw with epilepsy . i hav a few joints a day . i think drinkin alcohol is alot worse for epilepsy than cannabis

hi Jonesy28.

I agree with you about the alcohol, when ever i have been with my friend and she has been drinking she has had a seizure. she doesnt just tend to have 1, she will have one after the other kind of starting to come round from one and then going into another one. i have been with her when she has had 5 one after the other. i find it very interesting that you mention sleeping as my friend has problems sleeping, i am wondering if this could be aggrevating it maybe?
i cant see her wanting to smoke throughout the day but maybe having a joint before bed will help her.

Thanks for the reply

gg

yeah mate gettin enough sleep is a major part of gettin epilepsy under more control . as for alcohol i dont touch it nomre

My answer is here

on another thread and a little more info for you o read through aswell

yeah mate gettin enough sleep is a major part of gettin epilepsy under more control . as for alcohol i dont touch it nomre

I have epilepsy, and have both grand mal and petit mal seizures. I have been through most of the conventional medications, with little success, though have found a combination that has some effect now. I would never dismiss the conventional meds out of hand, as living with constant seizures is far worse than any side effects from the meds.

For sure sleep is important, as is keeping stress to a minimum, hormones too, and I don't drink either - it doesnt mix with my meds for one, but it certainly mixes with my brain and my epilepsy, so its a no no (though strangly other drugs don't, though these days I prefer to avoid them too)

As for using weed, I have been a heavy toker in the past, and whilst this has helped my epilepsy, not as much as not toking on quite a habitual level, as I do now. One thing is for sure, when I switched to grow my own a few years back, from smoking soapbar, my seizure rate dropped dramatically, but I was still toking away all day. These days I have a couple of joints in the evening, combined with my meds, and I have been able to reduce my medication level down and keep my seizure rate down too. If I increase my weed consumption rate too much (I mean drastically, not just the odd extra j) then I will fit a lot.

I am lucky in that my consultant is also part of an ongoing trail with his ms patients with cannabis, so is happy for me to try this out, and is happy for me to be on lower meds with some weed, whereas some may not be.

Epilepsy, as with most conditions is very personal, and what worls for some, may not work for others. It has taken me many years just to get to this point, and I'm still not seizure free, its just not a daily battle anymore.

hope that helps a lil

I have a friend that is epileptic, takes all the meds, if he doesn't he will have seizures, he smokes regularly, seems to calm him down and ease the side effects of all the meds he is on.


a guy told me that smokin cannabis can have the opposite the effects desired for people that are epileptic, is this simply untrue or what?

This may be of interest to ou.... http://www.mellowgold.com/medical/epilepsy.html...

And this to.........

Taken from the Drug Policy Alliance website www.drugpolicy.org

Medicinal Uses of Cannabis: Epilepsy

Excerpts from the American Public Health Association (APHA) amicus brief in Conant v. McCaffrey, (2001 filing):

Marijuana is effective in controlling seizures

Clinical experience and emerging research further indicate that marijuana can help control epileptic seizures.(45) Cannabidiol (CBD), one of the primary (and nonpsychoactive) cannabinoids present in the cannabis plant, appears to be of particular benefit, allowing patients who ingest it at certain times to avoid seizure activity. Some epileptics who cannot tolerate other antiseizure medications have been able to use marijuana to successfully control their seizures, without experiencing debilitating side effects.(46) (See complete APHA amicus brief for footnotes.)

Epilepsy Association of Toronto Regina v. Parker Amicus Brief.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/ep … factum.pdf

Declaration of Valerie A. Corral, in the landmark medical marijuana case, Conant v. McCaffrey: Ms. Corral is an epilepsy sufferer for whom medical marijuana has proven the only effective treatment for controlling her grand mal seizures and which does so with far fewer side effects than anti-convulsant drugs available through prescription.

Joy, Janet E.; Stanley J. Watson, Jr.; John A. Benson, Jr., Eds. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. Washington, DC: Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, Institute of Medicine. 1999. 259 p. (Chapter 4 of this report contains a section on epilepsy)

Hello,
I am diagnosed with convulsions (amongst other things).
Never know like you said; when they will put me on the ground.
I grow strains that calm me down. I do not trust others just handing me there strain which is in there pipe or whatever.
My bones are broken and deformed from falling therefor pain relief I need as well.

I have had bad reactions to the pills and would rather not take them but have changed my lifestyle. I smoke when I am tense or stressed, with smoking at night time for sleep is just what is. The tenture (oil) helps in my drinks and alcohol has been out for me for at least 20 years now.

Your friend needs to find a strain to work for her seizures and needs to regulate usage for herself since there is no guideline out there that I no of? One of my sons is diagnosed with epilepsy but he would rather not take anything and while my lifestyle changed so did his. Stress is just not in the cards for us, so peaceful rural living works for us.

Hope this helps?

hi peeps 1st post .
i have grand mall epilepsy for 12yrs now and been smoking cannabis for 17 years.took alot of seizures fkn thousands and tsunami headaches throughout the worst of my seizures i was on soapbar and tegretol. then i found skunk and for an epileptic who was on the chemical roundabout with meds IT WAS A DREAM. dont get me wrong my pursuit for skunk was for recreational use at 1st until i found the real medicinal benefits of the weed.and now i am off my tegretol and medicate myself with green. i still get tsunami headaches and heavy migranes but nothing a migraleve n big joint of swwet green cant sort out.as i smoke alot i dnt know dosage to recomend as i dnt get ne warnings i jst keep my body mellow enough not to get tense to lead to a seizure. rant ovr mooncat i can relate to ur post so much peace!

Think that this was a really good post mooncat - epilepsy really is very personal!

I am also epileptic, diagnosed at 19 which is quite strange, I suffer from gran mal fits. I have been a heavy smoker since a young age, and have had very few breaks, including when I have suffered my fits.

I have also given up alcohol, as this seems to be a primary cause of my fitting. I have to take medication, the chemests type, which does seem to control my fits, but this has always been in combination with Mary-J. So it could be part of the reason I have been lucky with my medication from the start of my fitting.

Although it is not an acceptable idea to the powers that be, that Cannabis is a natural super-drug, it is quite obvious to me that it helps very much with the stressfull aspects of my life. This is also important in controlling the fitting, as stress and instabilities in my mind, have been the secondry causes of my fits.

One thing which can be worth trying for people who do not which to get such a 'hard hit', is eating the product. It works as a slow release mechanism, and if you are careful with the dose, it is possible to feal virtually no side-effect, but this may require experimentation of course. If you are thinking of trying this, start with a really small amount, especially if it is for a person who does not have a high tolerance. You dont have to be feeling the stone to get some of the best medicinal effects.

As for strain, I believe something with a high CBD content is generally favoured for medicinal qualities, I'm not sure if this is true accross the board of ailments which Cannabis was once so widely used to relieve, but certainly it applies to Epilepsy, Anxiety, Asthma, PMS, ADHD....and many of the others. I have been smoking some organically grown Alaskan Ice, which is super high on CBD at over 1%. However it is also super strong, so maybe more difficult to dose for someone who does not want the stone. There is plenty of writing on medical strains, coming from Holland and Cannada etc. you just need to google 'medical cannabis strains'.

I hope your friend finds a satisfying solution - as moonshine suggested, everyone is different, but trying new things to find new solutions is always a healthy thing. They can be put down again if they dont work right!

Hope this helps some,

jahja

My best mates epileptic but for two years we have smoke copius amounts of ganja every week.
He has had no fits or to be frank, anything in the last year.
the more we blazed. the better his condition was until now, he pretty much doesnt have it or its dormant.

As already mentioned epilepsy is a personal thing, but my own experience as a "bone breaking, break dancin' epileptic" tells me yes it does help
Stress is my main activator, so if I'm stressed out I light a spliff........takes the worlds and my problems away.
I think we all know when "its gonna happen", not a good point to light a spliff.... , but prior to that point of no return, calmness helps and good weed brings on good calm.