Epilepsy is a brain disorder that is characterized by chronic seizures, which involves uncontrolled electrical firings in the brain causing a person to become uncontrollably stiff, twitchy, or limp. According to the CDC, an estimated 3.4 million people in America have been diagnosed with some form of epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a chronic condition that has no known cure. Instead, there are several different forms of treatments that are aimed at managing the condition. When effective, a treatment will reduce the frequency and severity of seizures that a person can experience.
However, there is no universal treatment that can be used on every person with epilepsy. There are too many kinds of epilepsy, as well as different levels of severity. A treatment may work well for one person, but not work at all for another. For some people, they may find that they are resistant to all known forms of treatments.
That’s why more research has gone into the potential of using cannabinoids, which is a family of chemical compounds found in cannabis plants. The most well known cannabinoids are THC, like d8 THC (the primary psychoactive element in marijuana that makes you high), and CBD.
Over the past decade, research and clinical trials have uncovered the potential for cannabinoid-based medications to help treat epilepsy for people whose conditions have been resistant to other forms of treatment. This includes those with more rare and serious forms of epilepsy, such as dravet syndrome.
Epidiolex
Epidiolex is the first cannabidiol-based medication to be approved by the FDA to treat two rare forms of epilepsy: dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Both are conditions that occur in young children, which can lead to more serious kinds of seizures and developmental issues.
They are also syndromes that are more prone to being resistant to treatments, which is where Epidiolex comes in. It was used in three randomized and double-blind clinical trials that gave either Epidiolex or a placebo to 516 children who had one of the two epilepsy syndromes. While some patients did have minor side effects to more serious adverse reactions, it also found that it was effective at reducing the frequency of seizure activity in numerous other test subjects.
That led to Epidiolex becoming the first FDA-approved medication that used cannabis-derived compounds as the main active ingredient back in 2018. It is now used as an accepted treatment for children with these forms of epilepsy, who have already been shown to be resistant to other treatments.
It is considered to be a controlled substance, and anyone who receives a prescription goes through a thorough guide for using it safely. This is something that is true for all other forms of medication-based treatments for epilepsy, however, because they are all powerful drugs that can have adverse side effects.
The side effects and adverse reactions include feeling tired, fatigued, lethargic, having a reduced appetite, diarrhea, weak, poor sleep, and rash. The guide includes talking about the increased risk for suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, liver issues, and more. While it can prove to be very helpful for children with these conditions, it does come with some risk.