A Personal Story (why this site exists)
Hello, I am Towlie – wanna get high?
Sorry! I had to. Provided the nature of this site, I’m using a pseudonym as will the other admins. I’ve been sitting here for a couple days debating where to start with this site. I really want to help and honestly, that’s a challenge!
While pondering how to do that, I’ve been reflecting on my day-to-day. I do live with epilepsy. It is technically “refractory” meaning it’s drug-resistant meaning I still have seizures no matter how well I treat myself and stick to my medical regimen. There’s a lot of epileptics like me. This has led many of us to chase alternative methods to treat our seizures including marijuana.
A lot of people think of CBD when they put “epilepsy” in the same sentence as “marijuana” but the truth is, it’s not all that reliable and it takes A LOT more than most people think! See this example case study if you’re feeling brave! In that study they’re starting at 2.5mg/kg a day, going up to 25mg/kg a day. While CBD can undeniably have a positive effect for some people, it can take quite a high dose – sometimes uncomfortable – and like many medications, it’s not known exactly how it helps with the seizure activity although there’s multiple theories.
Looking at that study alone, one can see it takes a substantial amount of CBD on a daily basis for those whom it does help. One of the more well-known and affordable companies is cbdMD. They sell CBD and THC products. Wondering how this is possible? Find out how here.
In future posts, we’ll be digging into exactly how CBD works on the brain but here’s the truth for this article: CBD doesn’t help me. I’ve tried a lot of different brands, forms and doses. Like any epileptic, we all respond differently.
What has been surprisingly helpful is THC. This feels unprofessional to write but it’s 2024. Every few hours I take a couple puffs from a vape. That is all… one moment …there we go. And, I’m still normal. Luckily THC doesn’t have near as bad of a rep as it used to. Nowadays I can run multiple businesses and be able to utilize it. It still has a stigma some places but I’m in a fully legal location so, it’s all good here.
How does THC help me?
Here’s what people don’t know about epilepsy… the worst part isn’t the seizures for many of us. I once told my neurologist “I wish I would just seize” and they said “you would be surprised how often people say that”… This must seem really odd to you right? WHO WOULD WANT TO SEIZE? Trust me … epilepsy is more than seizures.
A lot of the time dealing with epilepsy is feeling like there’s a seizure pending or dealing with sensations and discomfort that are just hard to put into words. While some seizures occur “out of the blue” as they say, there are situations where we’re aware ahead of time that a seizure is pending. Some of these periods are so long they actually becomes torturous for some making you wish it would be over with. There’s various causes behind this.
Lack of sleep is the first thing. If I don’t sleep good, I seize. Even now when my seizures are under their best control, a single night of bad sleep could wind up with a tonic-clonic (your “classic” seizure) and potentially in the hospital. THC helps with that. I am an insomniac, legitimately.
The problem is as an epileptic we need to avoid a lot of the sleep medications other people take. If we have a really bad seizure then medical professionals must use certain classes of drugs. If we have been constantly using certain sleep medications that happen to be in the same class, then there will be big problems at the hospital. There’s more to this. Generally, doctors try to avoid heavy medications for epileptics when not required. A lot of what we take IS heavy (not in a good nor “fun” way) but that’s part of the reason.
A hangover for example could mean a seizure. Anything that prevents an epileptic from waking up. I am getting to a point! So our sleep medications are limited. Even OTC things that give a “hangover” like diphenhydramine can be bad. THC (once you have a tolerance to an extent) may be used without having any sort of hangover-like effect depending on the individual.
THC is the difference between me taking 20-60 minutes to fall asleep vs 2-3 hours if at all. Any epileptic will know what that means for seizures.
The truth is in the past, I didn’t fight for cannabis much while I was busy fighting for other plants that honestly weren’t that helpful. It’s funny because some of my partners also had epileptic family members but just weren’t focused on the right goal.
No, I don’t think weed will cure epilepsy nor even help a great percentage of epileptics. I think it is however a great addition to what we have.
As of now I am on multiple medications. Us epileptics have “auras” which can be weird feelings, seeing lights, odd emotions, hallucinations … anything. It’s our brain misfiring. They used to be and still are often called an “aura” but nowadays they’re more frequently recognized as seizure-activity. I am honestly a little confused as there seems to be different interpretations and it seems the duration should be deadly if so in some cases but moving on, it’s quite distracting and often uncomfortable. Call these problem 1.
Beyond that are headaches. These can be literal migraines for which no cannabinoid will do anything or migraine-like headaches which are a side-effect of excessive neuronal firing. Migraines aren’t too dissimilar but trust me, there’s a difference. Migraines suck. The other headaches are still quite bad. This is problem 2.
Finally, there’s “partial” or “focal” seizures. Many people don’t know these exist. They present many ways. For some, it may be extreme deja-vu but trust me – it’s nothing non-epileptics experience, you know when it happens – and it may generalize into a tonic-clonic. It may also be a limb twitch (myoclonus), flash of dizziness, a jolt similar to what those withdrawing from alcohol or benzodiazepines go through. Actually, a lot of focals/partials could be compared to those symptoms in my experience. Unfortunately through my medication trial-and-error I have withdrawn from medications in the past. This is problem 3.
THC HELPS ALL OF THOSE “problems” FOR ME. Seriously. That’s why I’m sitting here typing this now. This is my “Hello, World!”. This is one of multiple new sites we’ll be starting and they all have a personal angle just like this one. This isn’t just something for marketing or followers. Yes, like any site we have costs. Trust me, it’s not cheap getting started. Also, this is going to be my full-time job. Literally. Because of THC.
See, I was not working for over half a decade. It took a lot of work with doctors but after about 4 or 5 years I got most of my bad seizures down to next to nothing but I still kept having partials and the other small stuff every day. It all adds up as does the lack of sleep. We found something off-label for that but it made me a zombie during the day. I had quit smoking years back because my seizures were getting worse and I wanted to get a “fresh start” so to say (chemically).
I decided to try vaping and wow … that made me anxious! It had been sooooo long!!! For weeks! I could only hit it so much so I was so anxious every time! Then I grew normal tolerance. Not super-stoner but normal.
I always had the motivation to get business going again. A lot of the assets required for business, I’ve held the whole time. I had successful businesses in the past and a half dozen (at least) lined up. I’m starting with this site, a more personal endeavor instead. I’m starting with this post here as my first REAL post.
They won’t all be like this. I want to share a little of the personality and drive behind the site however. See it’s actually simple. I’m in IT and am used to running websites. I want to start doing it again and THC helped get me going again recently so, a site about CBD and THC.
I’d like to dig deeper into how it works specifically, why it helps with sleep yet allows me to remain alert in the morning, how it helps with my headaches and other seizure-related activity, etc. I also like getting hands-on and seeing how things work so this site will explore things from edible recipes to modern science (industrial use or genetics for example) and obviously, medical topics. I started this little group to gather modern – relevant – information for this purpose.
What’s the plan?
Well, I like things nice and neat. Although as of writing you can’t tell, the whole website is laid out. It’s just not accessible due to lack of content. No sense in blank pages everywhere. I’ll come back to remove this later.
As I work on actual WORK, I’ll be on every day personally writing an article myself. As soon as any of my businesses start to expand even the tiniest amount, I’ll be hiring people to help as-needed. If anyone wants to write CBD and THC focused content including general marijuana-related content, please feel free to use the contact form for discussion on the future of this site.
I am aware AI exists. I’ve seen what it does with code … it’s not pretty … I don’t think I want it creating my content. So, slow and steady.
Welcome!
– Towlie