Cannabis Oil vs. Epilepsy: How One Plant is Changing Lives

Key Takeaways

• Cannabis oil can dramatically reduce seizures: High-CBD cannabis oil has significantly cut seizure frequency in some children with severe epilepsy. Families have reported life-changing improvements when traditional medications failed.

• Works through the body’s natural system: Cannabis compounds (like CBD) interact with our endocannabinoid system, helping restore balance in brain signaling and prevent the extreme electrical activity that causes seizures.

• CBD is non-intoxicating and safe: Unlike THC (the compound that causes a “high”), CBD doesn’t make you feel high and has minimal side effects. This makes CBD-rich cannabis oil a safer option for kids, with low risk of abuse or addiction.

• Backed by research and approvals: Clinical trials – and even an FDA-approved CBD medicine – have shown fewer seizures in hard-to-treat epilepsy syndromes like Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut.

• A new hope for difficult epilepsy cases: For children who don’t respond to conventional drugs, cannabis oil offers a hopeful alternative. By tapping into the body’s own calming mechanisms, it can improve quality of life for kids with epilepsy and bring relief to their families.

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An Unexpected Hope for Childhood Seizures

For parents watching a child endure dozens of seizures a day, life can feel like a nightmare. Seizures — sudden bursts of abnormal brain activity — can cause convulsions, unconsciousness, and endless worry for families. Traditional epilepsy medications don’t always work, especially in severe childhood cases. In recent years, an unlikely source of hope has emerged: cannabis oil. This plant-based therapy is providing relief for some children with epilepsy when nothing else has helped.

One famous example is a little girl from Colorado who suffered hundreds of seizures every week due to a rare epilepsy syndrome. After trying cannabis oil high in CBD, her seizures dropped from 300 a week to just a few per month. Stories like hers have spread worldwide, inspiring families and doctors to explore cannabis oil for epilepsy. What is it about cannabis oil that calms these relentless seizures? To understand that, we first need to know what’s inside this oil and how it interacts with the brain.

What Is Cannabis Oil (and Why CBD Matters)?

Cannabis oil is a concentrated extract from the cannabis plant, often taken by mouth as drops. Importantly, the kind used for epilepsy is usually rich in CBD (cannabidiol) and very low in THC. THC is the component in cannabis that causes a “high,” but in medical cannabis oils for kids, THC is typically minimized. CBD, on the other hand, does not produce a high or intoxication. Instead, CBD is a gentle compound that has been found to have protective and calming effects on the nervous system.

Parents might understandably be concerned about safety. Fortunately, studies have consistently found that pharmaceutical-grade CBD is well-tolerated in children with epilepsy. It can cause mild side effects like sleepiness or upset stomach in some cases, but it’s far from the harsh side effects that many traditional anti-seizure drugs have. In 2018, the treatment potential of CBD was confirmed when the U.S. FDA approved a purified CBD oil (brand name Epidiolex) for severe childhood epilepsy syndromes. This was a big milestone – a recognition by health authorities that CBD from cannabis is an effective anti-seizure medication. Doctors now prescribe this CBD oil for conditions like Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which are among the hardest types of epilepsy to treat.

How Does Cannabis Oil Calm Seizures?

At first glance, it’s astonishing that a plant extract could stop seizures when potent drugs sometimes cannot. The secret lies in how CBD interacts with our brains. The human body has an endocannabinoid system (ECS) – a network of receptors and chemicals that is almost like our internal cannabis system. This system helps regulate brain activity, immune response, and more. Our bodies even produce their own cannabis-like chemicals (endocannabinoids) such as anandamide.

In people with epilepsy, especially those with uncontrolled seizures, scientists have found that this internal system can be out of balance. For example, patients with temporal lobe epilepsy were observed to have unusually low levels of anandamide in their brains along with fewer cannabinoid receptors. In simple terms, their natural seizure-prevention system was weakened. This discovery opened the door to using cannabinoid therapy to boost that system and restore balance.

Essentially, a seizure is like an “electrical storm” in the brain – neurons fire uncontrollably. CBD in cannabis oil helps calm these storms by restoring balance to brain signaling. Research shows that cannabinoids (like CBD) can modulate the activity of cannabinoid receptors in the brain, which play a key role in regulating neuron excitability. By engaging these receptors and related pathways, CBD makes nerve cells less likely to misfire wildly.

But CBD doesn’t just work through the classic cannabinoid receptors (CB1 and CB2). Interestingly, CBD barely binds to those receptors at all. Instead, it influences other receptors and channels in the brain. One important target is a receptor called GPR55, which scientists jokingly nicknamed the “third” cannabinoid receptor. This receptor appears to be involved in epilepsy. Studies found that CBD blocks a molecule that triggers over-excitement in the brain via GPR55. By blocking this molecule, CBD stops it from amplifying the signals that lead to seizures. Think of it as CBD removing fuel from a fire.

The overall effect is that CBD reduces the hyperactivity of neurons. It puts the brakes on where the brain’s own braking system isn’t doing enough. This calming influence on the brain’s electrical activity is why CBD-rich cannabis oil can prevent a seizure before it starts, or greatly shorten its length.

Real-Life Evidence: Fewer Seizures and Brighter Futures

Cannabis oil’s benefits aren’t just theoretical – they’re being proven in real life and in clinical research. Over the last decade, families have flocked to try CBD for children with refractory epilepsy (a term for epilepsy that doesn’t respond to standard treatments).

Many parents have reported that after starting CBD oil, their child’s seizures went from dozens per day to only a few per month, or even none at all. Such reports, combined with early scientific studies, prompted larger clinical trials. Researchers conducted rigorous studies on CBD, leading to some landmark results.

In controlled trials for Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (two severe forms of childhood epilepsy), CBD oil significantly reduced seizure frequency compared to a placebo. These improvements were often seen on top of existing medications. Notably, one study found that 43% of patients with Dravet syndrome had their seizure frequency cut at least in half with CBD. In Lennox-Gastaut patients, CBD led to notably fewer “drop seizures” (sudden falls caused by seizures).

Such results are incredibly encouraging for conditions that were once considered nearly impossible to manage. CBD often worked even better when combined with other medications, like clobazam, without substantially increasing side effects. Aside from drowsiness or mild diarrhea in some patients, most children tolerated CBD oil very well.

Beyond the headline-making syndromes, research is exploring cannabis oil for other conditions too. Early studies in genetic disorders like Angelman syndrome show that CBD might help there as well. And ongoing trials are testing mixtures of CBD and a touch of THC to see if a balanced formula works even better.

Around the world, medical cannabis is gradually gaining acceptance as families report beneficial effects, especially from CBD-rich strains. The body of evidence is growing each year, bringing us closer to understanding the full potential of cannabis oil in epilepsy care.

Safety, Stigma, and “No High” Relief

One reason cannabis oil remained controversial is the stigma around marijuana. People worry about children getting “high” or becoming addicted. The reality is that medical cannabis oil for epilepsy is formulated to avoid these issues. CBD is the primary ingredient in these oils and CBD is not intoxicating.

Children taking CBD oil remain clear-headed. In fact, some parents note their children are more alert and socially engaged once their seizures subside, since they’re no longer dulled by constant seizure activity or heavy sedative drugs.

Safety is always a concern, but here the track record is reassuring. Extensive clinical trials have shown CBD to be a safe addition to epilepsy treatment, with a low risk profile. Unlike THC, CBD doesn’t trigger anxiety or confusion; it even tends to reduce anxiety. And there’s no evidence of CBD causing dependency in these medical contexts.

Of course, any treatment can have risks: very rarely, a patient might not respond well or could have an interaction with another drug. That’s why doctors supervise CBD therapy, adjusting doses carefully. But overall, compared to the often severe side effects of standard anti-epileptic drugs (which can include behavioral problems, cognitive slowing, or organ damage), CBD’s side effect profile is mild.

It’s also worth noting that cannabis has a long history in medicine. Epilepsy in particular has been treated with cannabis preparations for centuries. We’re essentially rediscovering a remedy that humans have had in their toolkit for a very long time.

A Hopeful Future

Families of children with epilepsy often live with uncertainty and fear, never knowing when the next seizure will strike. Cannabis oil is offering a newfound sense of hope and stability. It’s not a magic cure that works for everyone, but for many children, it has been nothing short of life-changing. Imagine a child going from constant seizures to being able to play, learn, and simply be a kid again – that’s the difference CBD oil has made in some lives.

Parents who felt out of options now have an alternative to try when traditional medicines fail. Researchers continue to study why cannabis oil works so well for seizures and how to make it even better. In the future, cannabis-based treatments will likely become more common, and hopefully, more children will find relief.

Cannabis oil stands out as a promising, empathic option – one that treats seizures and respects the patient’s quality of life. It harnesses the body’s own calming system to tame the storm of seizures, allowing children to reclaim their childhoods. And for any parent, that is a priceless gift.