What Happened When We Tried CBD For Autism
Updated: Mar 31, 2021
Anytime your child suffers from an ailment or disorder always discuss your options with their doctor. Including the use of supplements ,oils, and diet changes.
Understanding cbd
cbd oil - cannabinoids derived from either the hemp or marijuana plant. Its available in a therapeutic and pharmaceutical grade.
Therapeutic grade- Derived from hemp seed. It has a very low level of the cannabinoids and no trace of thc. It's what most of your little cbd shops sale.
Pharmaceutical grade-Derived from the plants. Much higher level of cannabinoids . Will have at least trace amounts of thc up to a higher level depending on which plant derived it.
Cannabinoids are believed to have a multitude of health benefits from seizures, cancer, pain, depression and anxiety. It has no known drug interactions.
It's available in many forms ranging from creams, drops, and candies.
Please note only some cbd products are full spectrum.
Why we tried it
I had a video come across my youtube feed on a toddler being treated with cannabis for autism and it changed his life. I immediately started doing research on this. I actually paused the video and zoomed in to read the label . It was Charlotte's Web. Also at the time the use of medical marijuana was on our state ballots. Which passed. In the course of my research I found many stories of the use for autism with amazing outcome. I didn't really find any for it not working for them. The most beneficial research I obtained was studies being done in Israel for 10 plus years and included a standalone study for autism. The biggest thing in the study conducted in Israel was either it had drastic improvement with autism patient or it did absolutely nothing and they couldn't pinpoint why. So we decided to give it a shot. We meet with our development pediatrician and got the go ahead. We order out of state for a pharmaceutical grade. We completely went into with the mindset of either it would help or do nothing.
What we saw improvement in
On the second day Shay built this huge Lego tower as tall as her. Her fine motor seemed to be improving. Making better eye contact. Cognitive ability seemed to be improving. She was also being more vocal in sounds. Shay is nonverbal as of know. She was responsive more to signing. We were so excited.
We had stuck to non medicating before this not even melatonin. .
She was even sleeping better.
Were it went wrong for us and the reason I think
So around day 4 she started having a huge amount of meltdowns . They were happening many times a day. Most of them we couldn't even figure out why. When her in home therapist would come she would have them. She had three in home therapist through her early intervention program she was in plus two out of home therapies.
In the evening she would have them and we really couldn't pinpoint why. We continued it for several weeks with no stop to the outbursts. I met with the doctor let her know and decided to do a break. Immediately after stopping the meltdowns stopped.
We waited three months and gave it another try to just eliminate out another cause of the behavior. The outcome was the same both times but the second trial they came on quicker . Like the first day.
What I believe was happening was it was making her more aware of being nonverbal or her limited ability to express herself. I total believe she was noticing the communication barriers.
So as of now we don't use cbd. We are waiting to see if she is going to be verbal. I'm not sure if we decide to use it again if we will even go the cbd route. We are checking more into the thc options.
Update to this
I wrote this originally in 2019. So much as been discovered about cbd since then. Research suggested that cbd kind of cancels out the effects of marijuania or makes it less intense. Shay has a medical card and we have used some gummies that contained cbd unfortunately they were still a no go for her. Now we used a tincture that had no thc it was a combination of cbd/cbg and it worked amazing for her. We only sampled this product and we did two weeks of different formulations . The first was focus it didn't really have any benefit it does not contain the cbg. The second was called focus plus it has the cbg and it was great . It is the only product I recommend for someone looking for a cbd product instead of a cannabis one.