Monthly Archives: June 2013

Medical marijuana helps stem 6-year-old’s seizures – CNN

Posted on by
Reply

“Six-year-old Jayden David violently shakes on the ground, his blue eyes vacant and then filled with searing pain. The video shows an unvarnished look at a seizure, something Jayden once experienced routinely.

Not anymore, says his father, thanks to medical marijuana.

Before he started taking a liquid, nonpsychoactive form of marijuana, Jayden couldn’t walk, eat solid food or take a bath.

He has Dravet’s syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of childhood epilepsy. It has triggered seizures so frequent that 44 times he has been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, his distraught father by his side.

Jayden’s doctors prescribed 22 anti-seizure pills a day, which controlled the seizures but left him immobilized due to the side effects.

“He’s in pain and suffering and crying,” said Jayden’s father, Jason David. “You can’t help him no matter what. What are you supposed to do? You have to do whatever it takes to save their life.”

Last year, he had enough. Delirious with fatigue and emotional pain, Jason David called his mother to say he wanted to put a gun to his head, just to end the heartbreak of seeing his son suffer. His mother convinced him to not give up.

David turned to something he had seen on television: medical marijuana.

On June 4, 2011, David gave his son marijuana. For the first time since Jayden was 4 months old, the boy went through an entire day without a seizure.

“Instead of medical marijuana, this is miracle marijuana,” said David, holding up a jam jar full of liquefied and cooled cannabis.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/10/health/medical-marijuana-child/

Children with epilepsy need medical marijuana

Posted on by
Reply

“Medical marijuana shouldn’t be for ‘adults only’.

My 9-year-old daughter has Aicardi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes extremely hard-to-control seizures, debilitation, disability and early mortality. She began having seizures at three months of age, and since that time has had multiple seizures every day, with rare exception — probably to the tune of nearly 200,000 seizures in her lifetime…

She is one of the 3 million Americans who have epilepsy, and one of the 40 percent whose seizures cannot be controlled by anti-seizure drugs. She has tried 10 anti-seizure medications as well as a high-protein/low-carbohydrate diet called the ketogenic diet; she takes three anti-seizure medications at once and has a vagus nerve stimulator implant that sends mild electrical pulses to the brain. These drugs help her, but she nonetheless experiences an average of three seizures every day. Moreover, the medications cause persistent side effects that negatively impact her quality of life, particularly her gastrointestinal, bone, dental, cognitive and mental health.

The Illinois Senate Executive Committee recently voted, 10-5, to move the House-passed medical marijuana legislation to the Senate for a vote. The bill is expected to pass, and though Gov. Pat Quinn has not committed to signing it, the general expectation is that the bill will become law. This should be received as great news for the many people with “debilitating” conditions that the bill is supposed to help — people for whom medical science has documented real, measurable and safe outcomes of the controlled use of cannabis or its component of chemical compounds.

It’s too bad that the legislature has ignored the medical needs of some of the most debilitated, and most vulnerable, patients in the state: children with epilepsy.

Imagine her father’s and my reaction upon learning that the legislature, in its concern not to send a “message” to kids that it is safe to smoke marijuana, decided that kids like ours, for whom medical cannabis has the potential to be as safe and effective as typical anti-seizure drugs, should be excluded from the benefits of this new law.

They have done so, I hope, only out of ignorance…

There is no likelihood that my daughter will become a drug addict from using a compound within cannabis in a medically controlled setting. There is, however, a good chance that participation in a controlled study of these compounds could open the door to new treatments for her, and the many children like her, who desperately need medical innovation to save or improve their lives.”

More: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-15/opinion/ct-oped-0515-marijuana-20130515_1_dravet-seizures-medical-cannabis

Marijuana Helps 6-Year Old Beat Severe Seizures, Replaces Pharmaceuticals

Posted on by
Reply

“Marijuana Replaces 22 Different Anti-Seizures Pills, Helps Prevent Seizures

As if the medical marijuana industry wasn’t controversial enough—with opponents arguing it encourages drug addiction and crime and supporters citing years of research to the contrary—there are now children benefiting from it. While there are several cases across the country of children being given various forms of cannabis to treat disease and illness, the case of 6-year old Jayden David is getting a particularly heavy dose of attention, where marijuana helped the boy beat severe epileptic seizures.”
 
 

Father successfully treats son’s epilepsy with medical cannabis (marijuana)

Posted on by
Reply
Marijuana

 
“A California father’s desperate quest to find a viable solution to his young son’s rare form of epilepsy has led him to incredible success in medicinal marijuana. The Los Angeles Times (LAT) reports that Jason David’s son Jayden now functions normally, eats solid food, and takes only four prescription medications for his condition rather than the 22 he had been takingprior to starting the cannabis protocol.Young Jayden suffers from an extremely rare, and potentially fatal, epileptic condition known as Dravet syndrome that is categorized as a “catastrophic form of intractable epilepsy.” For Jayden, symptoms of the condition have included things like intense “grand mal” seizure fits, continuous muscle twitching, inability to respond to or interact with others, difficulty chewing, and frequent screaming episodes.

According to Jayden’s father Jason, Jayden had spent most of his life either sleeping or seizing, which put incredible strain on the family as it unsuccessfully tried using prescription drug after prescription drug to at least ease Jayden’s symptoms. But Jayden’s condition only got progressively worse in response to pharmaceuticals, which led Jason to actually consider committing suicide as he says he simply could no longer bear watching his son suffer in this horrific way.

After praying intensely about the situation and meeting with their local religious congregation for guidance; however, the Davids stumbled upon medical marijuana, and particularly cannabidiol (CBD), one of the many cannabinoid compounds naturally found in certain varieties of marijuana. Following a period of heavy research into the history and effectiveness of CBD, Jason decided it was worth giving the treatment a try with his son — and upon doing so, the Davids observed an almost immediate improvement in Jayden’s condition.” 

 

Medicinal marijuana stops seizures, brings hope to a little Black Forest girl

Posted on by
1

“Six-year-old Charlotte Figi, a picture of precious in her “Gatsby”-style bob and blue toenails, stands patiently as her mother reaches up her dress to change her out of her soiled Pull-Ups. – Charlotte never says a word. She hasn’t in the past hour, and won’t for at least another 30 minutes, when she finally whispers the name of a visitor who is about to leave.

In the Figi household, these are signs of progress: Charlotte saying something. Charlotte eating and drinking. Charlotte standing and walking.

Charlotte breathing.

About 18 months ago, in the winter of 2011, Paige and Matt Figi signed a “do not resuscitate” order telling medical personnel to forgo life-saving measures for their daughter and let fate take its course.

They’d done all they could to control the seemingly endless, violent seizures that hit Charlotte 20, 40, 60 times a day. They put her on an extreme diet. They tried at least a dozen medications, many with harmful side effects. Despite some promising starts, nothing worked. And the rescue medications they were giving her to stop the seizures in fact stopped her breathing. CPR brought her back to life more than once.

After years of watching a cruel, incurable genetic disorder called Dravet Syndome rob their daughter of her basic bodily functions and send her into convulsions that caused head injuries and broken teeth, they had reached the end.

“We really thought, this is a horrible existence; she’s not going to live much longer.” Paige says. “This is not a life for her. This is torture. She is suffering all day. I’m not OK with this. She wasn’t even human anymore. She’d lie in my arms drooling, seizing, screaming and crying.”

Then, in an act of desperation, or inspiration – or maybe both – Matt called Paige from overseas, where he was working, and suggested a radical approach to Charlotte’s treatment.

“We need to try cannabis for Charlotte,” he told Paige. “We live in a compassionate state.”

Fifteen months later, the little girl with the DNR order is standing in the kitchen of their Black Forest home with her mother getting her Pull-Ups changed, cuddling in the arms of a visitor, playing with toys and strategically pushing the buttons on her “talker,” an electronic device that communicates when Charlotte can’t.

Her seizures have dropped from 1,200 a month to three, and the ones she has are shorter in duration and less severe. She’s off all the other medications with their troubling side effects. And, as one of the youngest medical marijuana patients in Colorado, her dramatic turnaround is starting to draw national attention, with a CNN report on the horizon.”

More: http://gazette.com/medicinal-marijuana-stops-seizures-brings-hope-to-a-little-girl/article/1502070

Medical Marijuana Looked Like This In The 19th Century

Posted on by
Reply

“Well before the start of Marijuana’s official prohibition (1937!), the bountiful health benefits of Cannabis were apparent to those with any sense. Especially Doctors and Indians and Indian Doctors. Doctors and Indians in the 19th century loved to use weed–and all drugs–as part of their magical cures.”

Weed - Medical Marijuana Looked Like This In The 19th Century

“Based on the images shared by io9, the buds powers has deep roots, it’s one of an assortment of hazardous drugs used as medicine in the pre-Dabistoric days. These ones of “weed” in medical, liquid form stood out as just more, ancient proof that Marijuana is simply Medicine.”

More: http://www.marijuana.com/news/2013/05/medical-marijuana-looked-like-this-in-the-19th-century/

Cannabis by product helps reduce effects of Parkinson disease medication

Posted on by
Reply

“Researchers from Brazil’s prestigious University of Sao Paulo have discovered that marihuana contains substances which can help ease the collateral effects of medicines prescribed to patients suffering from Parkinson disease.”

Brazilian researchers have tested the positive effects of canabiodiol 

“Six patients with Parkinson were given during a whole month small doses of “canabiodiol” one of the 400 substances in marihuana, following which encouraging results were confirmed according to scientists from the Riberao Preto Medicine School from the SP University.

“Patients with Parkinson developed improvements in their sleeping alterations, in their psychotic symptoms and could even reduce their trembling” said psychiatrist Jose Alexander Crippa, Neuro-sciences Department professor.

The paper on the discovery was published last November and next year an additional paper with test results on the anxiolytic effects of “canabiodiol” in patients with obsession and compulsion disorders will be released.

A group of voluntary patients with obsessive and compulsive conducts were medicated with the substance 70 minutes before facing situations that forced them into anxiety fits, and “improvements were evident”.”

http://en.mercopress.com/2009/12/30/cannabis-by-product-helps-reduce-effects-of-parkinson-disease-medication

Activation of Cortical Type 2 Cannabinoid Receptors Ameliorates Ischemic Brain Injury, Study Suggests

Posted on by
Reply

“A new study published in the March issue of The American Journal of Pathology suggests that cortical type 2 cannabinoid (CB2) receptors might serve as potential therapeutic targets for cerebral ischemia.

Researchers found that the cannabinoid trans-caryophyllene (TC) protected brain cells from the effects of ischemia in both in vivo and in vitro animal models. In rats, post-ischemic treatment with TC decreased cerebral infarct size and edema. In cell cultures composed of rat cortical neurons and glia exposed to oxygen-glucose deprivation and reoxygenation (OGD/R), TC decreased neuronal injury and mitochondrial depolarization, specifically through type 2 cannabinoid receptor (CB2R) pathways.

“To our knowledge, novel data presented in this study provide evidence for the first time supporting a previously unappreciated role of cortical CB2R, especially neuronal CB2Rs, in ischemia,” says lead investigator Won-Ki Kim, PhD, of the Department of Neuroscience, College of Medicine, Korea University in Seoul. “This study suggests that further investigation is warranted to establish the clinical usefulness of TC as a preventative and therapeutic agent for treatment of stroke.””

More: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130221141140.htm

New Study: Cannabinoids Protect the Brain and Heart From Injury

Posted on by
Reply

“Cannabis is in the news again for its purported medicinal benefits, with researchers in Israel last week indicating it may help prevent trauma to the brain in certain circumstances and may also help with cardiac problems. A few months ago an English pharmaceutical company that manufactures cannabinoids announced it was developing a new treatment for epilepsy using them.”

Los Angeles City Council Votes To Ban Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

“Prof. Yosef Sarne in the Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Tel Aviv University says that cannabis has neuro-protective qualities. He has found that extremely low doses of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC- the psychoactive component of marijuana- can protect the brain from long-term cognitive damage in the wake of injury from hypoxia (lack of oxygen), seizures, or toxic drugs.”

More: http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2013/06/09/new-study-cannabinoids-protect-the-brain-and-heart-from-injury/

GW Pharmaceuticals: Giving New Meaning To ‘High Potential’

Posted on by
Reply

“GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) is an UK-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of cannabinoid-based products for a wide range of indications. GW has established a technology platform based on genetically modified cannabis plants and has become a leader in plant-derived cannabinoid therapeutics.

 GW’s lead program is Sativex, a cannabis extract based oromucosal spray whose main actives are the cannabinoids delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and cannabidiol (CBD). It is approved for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) spasticity in 21 countries outside of the U.S and already marketed in seven countries (eight following Italian launch in Q213).

…While MS spasticity has provided proof-of-concept in the worldwide approvability of Sativex, a more meaningful commercial opportunity is in the treatment of opioid-refractory cancer pain. Sativex has been tested in two Phase II trials in cancer pain. The trials have demonstrated that Sativex is safe and effective when used in addition to opioids in patients whose cancer pain is not sufficiently managed by opioids alone. Based on these results, GW has initiated three Phase III trials. The first two are expected to complete during 2014 and support an FDA filing.”

More: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1490392-gw-pharmaceuticals-giving-new-meaning-to-high-potential