Cannabis and Epilepsy - Does anyone have stories to share?

Hi, I have a seizure disorder. Can I talk about how Cannabis helps me here?
Thanks VetStonerrh EB

Proud Navy Veteran EBEL  !!! !!! !!!   I am a 22 year surviver of a TBI. I am a service connected DAV. Marijuana Helps me with disabilities. It is sad because all of my VA Doctors know this but they can't "Law" & won't talk about it to me. I KNOW that there are many other Veteran out there that Marijuana Helps !!!    Us Vets we will get this wrong law changed.

My combat unit was D company, 5/12, 199th Light Infantry Brigade.
I worked as a light weapons infantryman in heavy combat from that time until I was seriously wounded in a rocket propelled grenade ambush in which I incurred a penetrating temple wound on March 2, 1969.

Fragments from the rocket grenade lodged in my right temple, head, face and neck.  Our medic had to stop the bleeding and restart my heart three times on the way to the field surgical unit.  The survival rate was .02% for penetrating temple wounds in the Vietnam war with over 90% of the survivors rendered 'vegetables'.

I incurred the following residual conditions:
Loss of part of skull, both inner and outer tables, area larger than a 50cent piece; seizure disorder; chronic brain syndrome; cephalgia; total loss of vision in right eye; sleep disorder, [hypersomnia]; constant tinnitus right ear, post traumatic stress disorder;
scars disfiguring scalp, face and neck; hearing loss, sensoneural, severe, bilateral; facial muscle injury, right temporalis.

When I was about to be released from the army hospital, my army neurologist handed me a prescription for Dilantin but advised me to smoke marijauna instead because, "Pot is much more forgiving for your conditions.  I know it is illegal, so be careful." 
That was early summer, 1969.

I tried the Dilantin for a few months and could barely get out of bed on it. I could not open my mouth with out drooling. I could not think in complete sentences.  So I started substituting marijuana and it has helped me tremendously with out the debilitating side effects. I hope that the VA and our federal government will recognize the benefits of medical cannabis for traumatic brain injured veterans and everyone who can benefit from it very soon, for it truly is a life saver.

What is wrong with this country?  Marijuana is illegal for use as a medication but violating the constitution is something congressmen allowed, promoted, and some still want.  If there is a medication that can help persons with intractable epilepsy it needs to be discussed at the coming 2009 National Epilepsy March.

For vets with TBI you might be interested to know that an excellent epileptologist, Dr. Samuel J. Potolicchio, is on a committee working to help you.  After seeing numerous epilepsy specialists and visiting many epilepsy centers over the past 34 years I must say that he is the best neurologist I have had as a doctor.  Check out his web site.  He is extremely devoted and forthright.

The government has ran a very effective propaganda machine set against its use and people who use it.
Prohibition failed.

Wow it's great to know that so many others have the same problems as me with siezures and Rx's and t.b.i. I empathize completely as I am also a disabled vet I had T.b.i. and broken back in thailand so the smoke helps with siezure control, anxiety, pain and on days when I'm completely losing my mind. God Bless

It's funny I had absence seizures as kid and now have TBI induced tonic-clonic seizures. I had no problems w/ seizures after roughly the age of 8. I begin smoking weed at the age 14. Weed never gave me hint of a seizure until I was 21 and had my wisdom teeth removed due to one becoming abcsessed.  I was up nearly 3 days due to the pain,and had a tonic-clonic seizure during that time.

I had the teeth removed under anesthesia,and felt odd for the next couple of days. After three days I was cleared to smoke and fired up my morning joint. Two short absence seizures while toking away. It had been so long since I had one,I had no what the seizures were?  I thought I'd run across some great weed?

This went on for a couple of months. Once or twice a week I'd be burning one of seven daily joints and I'd have another lil' "spell". This gradually increased until to two-three times a day. One Sunday my Mom is over,I sneak into the bedroom for a couple of bong hits I come back to living room and had a couple of spells. She's on it immediately. "How long have the seizures been going on?"

I go to the neurologist. Because of my past my only choice of drug was Dilantin (can't give a dopefiend phenobarbital.) and I was ordered to quit smoking weed. The seizures ended shortly into treatment and after three years I was taken off the Dilantin. My weed smoking remained minimal and finally nil after 5-7 years.

Flash forward 22 years. I'm in my basement and hear the phone ring. I stand up and I'm working near a beam that's at roughly six feet off the floor. Unfortunately I'm wearing work boots and come in a hair over six feet in socks. I turned to get the phone. The beam knocked me out cold.

Roughly 4-5 days later my tonic-clonic seizures begin.

I was put on a drug,which I won't mention, that reminded me of the second-third hour after sparking up a joint back the old days. In fact when my wife asked me how I felt on it,my response was "mellow" a term I hadn't used in good 25 years.

I turned out to be too much of med for me at even minimal levels. I moved to another drug that has worked quite well for me. My main problems post stabilization were severe muscle spasms caused by damage from the seizures. Muscle relaxants and the seizure med made me zombie boy. I finally said the Hell with it and figured I'd live with the spasms?

Roughly six months later I'm off on a fishing trip with a couple old friends,both spiritual siblings of Ken Keasey. I start having spasms early in the ride and I'm hurtin' bad two hours in. Keasey #2 says "You want to try this" and sticks a one hitter my face. My attitude by that time is what's to lose?

It took me two hits to do the fellas "one hitter"  but my spasms were gone thirty seconds after I passed the thing back up front. I then went three and a half weeks without a spasm. This is from 3-6 plus severe spasms a day for 7 years. Friggin' amazing.

My dosage is 3-5 hits of what the kids call "schwag" once a week,depending on the potency. Two years now and a total of roughly 5 spasms in that time.  I'm functional human being again due to cheap low grade weed. My docs are good with it,(the neurologist laughs about it),and so is the wife.

Honestly until the spasm relief happened I thought medical marijuana movement was nice little tactic to legalize weed in general? Now I believe there's something to it.