I have worked with several children who develop more normal and “connected” emotional behavior after taking cannabis medicine. For example, a year prior, the child was never jealous or much aware of their sibling and now they act out with jealousy. You might say that is a nuisance for the parents, but I can assure you that the parents are overjoyed to see new and “normal” feelings in their child.
So, what is happening? For sure something is happening in these children that is way, way beyond seizure or outburst control. I think we might be witnessing neurological improvement.
Possibly they are getting improvement neurologically and some new neurological circuits are forming. This leads me to wonder what would happen if we gave these children CBD from initial diagnosis?
In my 37 years of practice as an internal medical doctor, I have dealt with many patients suffering from myasthenia gravis and various other neuromuscular disorders. Prior to discovering medical cannabis, I was limited by traditional therapies. However, with several options for dosed medical cannabis therapies we are seeing some exciting and promising results.
It has become clear that many, but not all, of the mitochondrial diseases often have neuromuscular, cerebral and other issues. Each disease is different, but they share some common characteristics. They often have acetylcholine deficiency states, centrally, peripherally or both. Additionally, they frequently have circulating antibodies against acetylcholine receptors or acetylcholinesterase, the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine. We have found THC, THC-Acid and CBD can all lead to increasing acetylcholine activity and/or function in the central and peripheral nervous system. It is well worth continued therapy using this multi-cannabinoid triad of therapy.
There is increasing evidence that cannabinoids, particularly CBD, possess antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties. This makes cannabis therapies effective in the treatment of a wide variety of oxidative stress associated diseases including: atherosclerosis, cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, myocardial infarction, cardiovascular diseases, chronic inflammation, stroke and many other inflammatory, autoimmune and age related diseases. The use of various cannabis therapies in these patients has resulted in generally improved conditions and I am hopeful further research will provide viable alternatives for patients whose conditions are not able to be managed through traditional pharmaceutical therapies.
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