Epilepsy, a persistent seizure disorder, affects an estimated 2 million Americans as well as about 30 million people around the world. There are many symptoms associated with this disease including repeated rapid attacks of altered consciousness, uncontrolled movement, and convulsions which are brought on by instantaneous stimulation of nerve cells. Patients may become susceptible to epileptic seizure via a variety of potential causes, including contact with chemical toxins and physical injury.
Other patients diagnosed with epilepsy have partial seizure, also called focal seizures. During partial seizure, disturbances occur in the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that controls consciousness, sensation, and movement. These functions become momentarily disordered every time partial seizures happen. Some patients with epilepsy experience seizures that affect many aspects of the brain, especially when the cause of their epilepsy was sustaining an injury to centrally essential parts of the brain. These seizures can transpire as either violent grand mal events or mild petit mal.
There are many conservative anticonvulsant medications that can be used in efforts to manage epileptic seizure. Oftentimes, patients are compelled to try several medications before finding the most effective treatments mainly because diverse drugs are suitable for varying kinds of seizures. Anti-epilepsy drugs repress seizures totally in almost 60 percent of people with epilepsy and decrease their fatality in another 15 percent. Unfortunately, a lot of the lingering 25 percent experience brain disease that is alleviated by anticonvulsant therapy. Other patients persistently experience seizures because either they resist recommended medication or they use the medications incorrectly and their bodies are unable to take in the drugs.
These anticonvulsants usually make patients drowsy and sometimes even mentally slow. They can also lead to hair loss, headache, tremor, and dermatitis, among other side effects. Many patients who have epilepsy endure the effects of anticonvulsants to prevent seizures, which are both emotionally devastating and physically dangerous.
Unfortunately however, although there are anecdotal evidence and a number of reports ranging from individual studies to clinical studies suggesting marijuana’s ability to manage epileptic seizures, there is not much solid evidence supporting this assertion. This is mainly because studies conducted have not been extensive enough. The single relevant study that has been published at present was intended to assess whether illegal drug usage affected the age at which patients who have epilepsy experienced their first seizures. In this research, 600 patients were examined and researchers discovered that men, who had experienced using the drug, were less likely to have seizures than men who had not used marijuana.
Researches of medicines for epilepsy usually require large number of patients who need to be supervised for months because symptoms are extremely changeable and even tend to happen unpredictably. There has been no study of this extent done yet. Currently, the only biological grounds that back up the ability of cannabinoids suppressing epileptic seizures is CB1 receptors found in great quantities in brain regions, the amygdala and hippocampus, where most partial seizures start.