For more information about our group or local pediatric cannabis resources, please e-mail me, Allison Ray Benavides, LCSW at [email protected]**
I’m a medical social worker living in San Diego currently working in the field of death and dying. When my 3 year old son was diagnosed in 2013 with Doose Syndrome, a catastrophic and intractable form of epilepsy, we were lucky to find seizure control with the addition of a high CBD concentrate.
The doctors at Rady Children’s Neurology presented my son’s case during the 2014 American Epilepsy Society’s 68th Annual Professional Conference. To learn more about his medical history and response to CBD, the abstract is here.
They haven’t shown much interest since. His neurologist manages his pharmaceutical, I manage his cannabis. While we’ve been able to fill in the gaps and make this arrangement work, years into this I find the continued disconnect between medicine and cannabis to be ridiculous and immature. Our children’s lives are at stake. You can read an op-ed I contributed to on this very subject at the Huffington post: Cannabis for Children with Intractable Epilepsy: Bypassing Big Pharma.
**IMPORTANT NOTE: I do not work outside my scope of practice as a social worker and will not provide medical advice. Please see my resource and getting started pages for those who can.**
