Cannabis Vs. Pharmaceuticals For Autism and Epilepsy - How Pharma Drugs Cause Seizures

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Many have followed the incredible cannabis recovery of our daughter Genevieve who has severe Autism and Epilepsy.

One element many don’t know about is her condition was worsened dramatically by drugs that caused seizures – ADHD medications. When first meeting Genevieve she was having severe side effects that caused hospitalization. Her mom called frantically needing help, we’d never spoken before, but that led to Genevieve’s incredible Journey. One of the first things that had to happen was discontinuing those pro convulsive drugs – that’s right, ADHD medications come with a seizure warning. Parents around the globe are quickly learning as Cannabis Education increases both online and off – they read stories like Genevieve’s and then talk it up on social media and over family and friendly dinners. People are amazed at how children are responding to extracts of cannabis and hemp and it becomes obvious to see the tell-tale differences between kids and teens treated with these natural elements of nature instead of pharmaceuticals. Many don’t realize the risks they take with their children when they’ve rushed healthcare professional hands them a new prescription – as it could help or it could be a piece of paper that starts a path of destruction for the future of that child. Medicinal cannabis gives parents and patients an option that was there 100 years ago and should have never faded away to the greed that caused the beautiful plant to become prohibited and considered to have ‘no medicinal value’ – placed into a category with drugs like Heroin to scare the world.

Genevieve has made remarkable progress by using cannabis oils and discontinuing the use of pharmaceuticals for ‘behaviors’ – with Autism she never should have been prescribed them. Before Cannabis she was like a zombie, seized most of the day, and was functioning at age 3 cognitively. 3 years later she functions at age 13. Although she still is not ‘verbal’ in speech – she talks to us and tells us what she wants, needs, likes, and dislikes. She has her life back now thanks to natural plant-based medicine.

While many drugs have been used by doctors to treat behaviors in children often thought to be ADHD with success, almost all patients that use these drugs end up having serious issues with side effects and even worse – addiction to a stimulant. What many researchers have concluded is this is literally the gateway to the use of illicit stimulants down the line such as methamphetamine. There’s no easy way to treat severe ADHD symptoms but since Cannabis and its extracts allow the brain to increase levels of dopamine without serious and unwarranted side effects, it only seems to be the right natural choice. When looking at this decision being made by countless parents to get away from pharmaceuticals, consider these facts:

Diagnoses of ADHD are still increasing. In 2016, 6 million children in America, or nearly 10% of all kids, were diagnosed, up from 6.1% in the late 1990s.
ADHD is typically treated with stimulants that have serious side effects including seizure risks. Adderall is only one of them, Ritalin and others do the same. All are designed to do what cannabis already does which helps a person focus by increasing dopamine levels. But these pharmaceuticals come with a range of risks, from sleeplessness to sudden death in children with heart conditions.
Some parents who are concerned about the many side effects of stimulants are experimenting with cannabis and its extracts – which increase dopamine levels and can help calm racing thoughts. Since cannabis doesn’t come with seizure risks and more it’s being heavily sought after in both legal and yet to be legal cannabis states.

It’s the drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that are scaring parents – many of the common side effects are beyond concerning as they have such a high potential for addiction so the patient will not only become addicted to the medicine but end up suffering from the side effects throughout such a dependence. Just like Oxycodone is related to Heroin in a very close manner (like siblings), these ADHD drugs are related to Meth in the same manner – and when it comes to Adderall the drug is no different, it’s pharmaceutical meth salts. This poses a serious problem when parents of Autistic Children go to the doctor over ‘behaviors’ and their healthcare professional decides to use a stimulant and treat what they believe is “ADHD” when instead it’s something very different. Nearly 1/3rd of all kinds with Autism will develop Epilepsy or already have it and are yet to be diagnosed. A common side effect of a stimulant is a seizure – so if you give one to a child with Autism you’ve got a good chance of finding out if they truly have Epilepsy – or do you? Instead, most parents see more disturbing behaviors and don’t know what they are. When a child with Autism develops Epilepsy, especially when pharmaceutically induced, it’s almost always Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. The seizures manifest in behaviors – so what the doctor saw and prescribed a stimulant for was Epilepsy in the first place and all the stimulant did was cause convulsions or the behaviors to become worse making the parent think the drug isn’t working – then what happens? Often the doctor will increase the dose or change to yet another medication – or even more scary they’ll add yet another pharmaceutical.

“They’ve seen improved performance in school and happier and calmer kids at home,” Elizabeth Spaar, a family medicine physician in Verona, Pennsylvania, stated in a recent interview, referring to how her pediatric patients and her own children with ADHD have responded to medical marijuana. Roni Sharon, a neurologist in New York, prescribes medical marijuana for some conditions in adults, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But Sharon told stated he’s opposed to prescribing it to younger patients because of the risks. “With adolescent brains, you have to be very careful,” Sharon said. Recently Business Insider covered part of this issue in an article and interviewed several health experts, but what they didn’t do was cover the fact that these stimulants can and will cause seizures in children with Autism and simply shouldn’t be prescribed to them without all of the diagnostics done for Epilepsy first -to take it one step further no child or adult should gain these type of drugs without both an MRI and EEG done first. These are known pro convulsive drugs with seizure warnings upon their product insert as mandated by the FDA.

One doctor says cannabis can help with attention issues and may calm racing thoughts:

Dr. Elizabeth Spaar owns Spectrum Family Practice, which specializes in medical marijuana and addiction recovery. Since opening her marijuana program a year and a half ago, Spaar said she has prescribed medical marijuana to about 75 pediatric patients with a variety of conditions, including ADHD, PTSD, autism, and Tourette syndrome. When Spaar talks to patients about the pros and cons of treating ADHD with medical marijuana, she points to personal experience.

Spaar’s two teenage sons both have ADHD and high-functioning autism. For several months, Spaar’s younger son tried a variety of stimulants — Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta — to treat symptoms associated with the conditions. While the drugs helped somewhat, Spaar said she was concerned with the side effects, which included a suppressed appetite and difficulty falling and staying asleep. Both are common effects of stimulants.

Some medical professionals say that medical marijuana is useful if only to get their ADHD patients off stimulants. David Berger, a pediatrician and the medical director of Wholistic Releaf, a medical-cannabis clinic in Tampa, Florida, told Insider that he’s using it for that very purpose. In total, Berger said 20 of his pediatric patients have been able to stop taking drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall by taking a combination of THC, the chemical responsible for marijuana’s mind and body high, and CBD, a chemical compound that doesn’t get patients high but can help to address some medical and mental-health issues.

Dr. Spaar decided last year to give her sons a microdose of THC and CBD as an alternative to stimulants. Twice a day, Spaar’s sons, who are 13 and 15, take five milligrams of the medication orally in an oil form. Spaar said that some families will work with pharmacists and consultants at a dispensary to figure out an appropriate dose. She confers with her children’s psychiatrist about the issue, but he doesn’t handle the specifics of the case.

Since starting to take medical marijuana, Spaar said her younger son is now less anxious and better able to focus on his schoolwork. She said it’s also helped with his tics. The 14-year-old’s sleep has improved and so has his appetite since he ceased taking stimulants. Spaar’s older son, who has more severe autism-related and ADHD symptoms than his younger brother, has seen a noticeable improvement in many areas, his mother said, since being introduced to medical marijuana. The 15-year-old’s grades are up, he’s having an easier time focusing and completing tasks at school and at home, she said.

Spaar said the marijuana has also decreased his hyperactivity and calmed his racing thoughts and restlessness. She said she has “no doubt” that she will be seeing more cases where medical cannabis is used to treat children with attention issues. Spaar said her patients have been pleased with the results, especially because it has allowed many of them to cut back on, if not fully cut out, stimulants. Still, Spaar said some of her peers have been vocal about their disapproval.

“There are people who say, ‘You’re just getting your kid high.’ That’s what they think of when they think of marijuana,” Spaar said. “But once I tell them the dramatic improvement I’ve seen, it tends to open people’s eyes.”

Genevieve makes incredible progress with Cannabis oil only

As we see the use of cannabinoid medicine become more mainstream and as the populace at large starts considering cannabis as a legitimate medicine, more eyes are opening to its benefits and how we all can get away from the pharmaceuticals we know have problematic and often dangerous side effects. Interviews such as the one did with Dr. Spaar help to really prop open the often rolling eyes of the medical industry when it comes to Cannabis.

Many parents are very content in giving their children what the doctor orders or they used to be. As stories like Genevieve’s break into the public domains more and more are learning to question what a doctor is ordering for their child. After all, before pro convulsive ADHD medications Genevieve was a child that only had the diagnosis of Severe Autism. Severe Intractable Epilepsy only came after years of pro convulsive pharma drugs caused convulsions. That diagnosis has been updated to state ‘no sign of convulsive seizures’ after several years of medicinal cannabis oils and a 100% exit from all pharmaceuticals – now she no longer has them. She’s gained 10 years of developmental progress in only 3 years of using cannabis oils. There’s not a drug on this planet made by Big Pharma that can tout this type of recovery yet we still have a large population of people questioning cannabis as medicine. It’s time to wake up and smell the buds!