Epilepsy is a central nervous system (neurological) disorder in which brain activity becomes abnormal, causing seizures or periods of unusual behaviour, sensations, and sometimes loss of awareness. It is non-discriminate and can affect anyone.
Now although these stats may not be too alarming, especially after being hardened by a recent global pandemic; perspectives on what is a scary stat may have changed somewhat. That being said it should not take away from how epilepsy can be extremely detrimental to an individual’s quality of life and is a perfect example of how diverse and flexible CBD can be in benefitting sufferers. This blog post is to purely set a premise and to allow readers to understand the potential of CBD in a large array of areas.
One particular journal article that stood out when looking at CBD’S relationship with epilepsy was one coined, “Evidence for cannabis and cannabinoids for epilepsy: a systematic review of controlled and observational evidence”. This review took 291 patients with a mean age of 16.1 years (0.5 – 55) all suffering with drug-resistant epilepsy. After using CBD, the impressive and primary outcome was the proportion of patients who experienced a 50% or greater reduction in seizure frequency. This figure isn’t a small change, nor is it a figure that people who don’t advocate CBD can disagree with. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but that is potentially an individual having to deal with half the burden they have been weighted within day-to-day life. Secondary outcomes included the proportion of patients achieving complete seizure freedom; quality of life indicators (including changes in mood, behaviour, sleep, attention, speech and cognitive, social and motor skills (Stockings E, 2018).
There are countless journal articles similar to the one aforementioned out there, almost all of which advocate the use of CBD within the treatment of epilepsy. So much so, that as of November 2019 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended Epidyolex, a purified cannabidiol (CBD) oral solution, for use in the NHS.
The NICE recommendation means that more people with these epilepsy syndromes will be able to access Epidyolex if other treatments have not worked. Epidyolex has previously been made available on the NHS to a small number of people with these syndromes through an Early Access Programme (EAP).
This announcement follows an earlier decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to license Epidyolex for use in the European Union (EU). The recommendation from NICE means that there is now a process and funding in place to make Epidyolex available in the NHS. All very exciting stuff. These small victories for the use of medicinal CBD act as a catalyst for its further development and wider accessibility, allowing for the ‘average Joe’ to be more able to reap the benefits; as more taboos get quashed it becomes harder to dodge, duck, dip and dive from CBD and it’s all for a good reason!
The CBD Candle Co’s way of opening eyes, as well as nostrils to CBD’S progress, is to bridge the gap between tincture, edibles and all the other means of application and that of no use of CBD at all. We make the leap a small hop – for those who are on the fence, to jump it and graze on greener pasture. Our range of aromatherapy CBD candles have been designed thoughtfully and carefully blended with a selected range of scents which are proven to help you relax, unwind and uplift.