The big miracle of the little man

Those who set the goal of developing this world, have made a lot of mistakes. The idea was incredibly good, but its realization has been a failure, as it happens quite often. War, hunger, tyranny – all these things are a list of side effects than leap up on the humanity body as purulent boils, and this list can be continued for a quite long time. And a special place in the unfair development of this world is reserved for children. For sick children. Many of you have repeatedly seen photos of babies suffering from HIV or oncology walking around the net.  Alas, you don’t need to be a sprinter to see the finishing tape in most such cases. The black tape. However, there are exceptions to the rule. Moreover, such exceptions become more and more frequent with the medicine development, and sooner rather than later the exceptions will become the rule.

Jayden David, a little Briton, is one of the few children suffering from Dravet syndrome – a very rare and serious nervous disease. Dravet syndrome is classified as a severe form of epilepsy accompanied by irregular contraction of muscle groups throughout the body (myoclonia). The anomaly is caused by the brain neurons degeneration due to encephalopathy known as metabolic disorder. This type of epileptic encephalopathy is rare – about one case per forty thousand children. The prognosis is unfavorable: the syndrome is recognized as incurable, and 19% of the patients have fatal outcome.

 The boy was born healthy and on time. He evoluted well. However, the family idyll did not last long. Everything came to the end when, after 4 months of life, Jayden started suffering from convulsions. It was then that the doctors delivered the terrible verdict with a formidable stroke of the pen – Dravet syndrome. Starting from that day the child who recently was healthy and cheerful just began to literally waste away right before our very eyes: the boy was getting worse and worse. The number of seizures increased exponentially with each passing day. Their frequency and intensity had led to the fact that the child began to lose consciousness. But this was only the beginning of the David family earthly punishment. Over time, Jayden’s condition worsened so much that he had become unable to eat and move on his own, and the number of severe seizures increased up to 300 cases per week.

Besides the terrible disease, considerable harm to Jayden’s health was also made by drugs that were used to somehow reduce the number of seizures. All this led to the fact that by the age of four, among other things, he barely spoke and could only eat grated food.

In an attempt to somehow alleviate the suffering of the child, his father, Jason David, had tried everything, even the most non-standard methods of treatment, however, everything was in vain. The ominous shadow of hopelessness hanging over their house seemed just to laugh at all attempts. But at that time little did it know that it was laughing last days – Jayden’s father at that time seemed to have found the very last chance saloon which he had searched for the past five years.

After reading about positive effects of medical cannabis in the epilepsy treatment, he decided – let’s dream wild! – to try it in the Dravet syndrome treatment. Jason David took Jayden and went to the most important way in his life – to California where the medical use of cannabis had been allowed at that time. Things were so pitiable by that time that the most important path for little Jayden could be the last one.

Upon arrival in California, the family first went to the local dispensary, and there Jason bought CBD oil for his son. This had become a new starting point in the David family life; a kind of reset. Soon most of the drugs were canceled for the child. The number of seizures decreased by more than 90%. For the sixth anniversary of Jaden, the ringing laugh of childlike carelessness spread through the house as music, and it was for the first time in recent five years.

Dravet syndrome (as well as ordinary epilepsy) is understood as an excessive uncontrolled electrical activity of the neuronal groups of the cerebral cortex. A sudden voltage surge transfers its charge to neighboring groups of neurons, and thus spreads electrical activity, including brain areas that are responsible for muscle movement and contraction. Such a transfer happens as a result of activity of long neurons and dendrites, and chemicals – neurotransmitters. This is called a seizure. The list of symptoms is so huge that it would not fit even in a separate book, because the focus of such activity can be located in various areas of the brain and have a very different nature.

The experimental type of treatment based on taking THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) has a sedative effect, i.e. relaxes muscles and reduces the level of cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate) – an intermediary of the signals of certain hormones that are unable to pass the cell membrane (e.g., adrenaline). All this together leads to stress coping, and that is very important for patients with epilepsy because adrenaline causes the brain to “accelerate”, to be more active in neurotransmitters and electrical impulses transmission, and thus encourages the attack. Therefore, this method is extremely effective.

Now Jayden is 12 years old, and despite the fact that Dravet syndrome hasn’t been defeated in his body, the number of attacks decreased from 300 per week to several per month. Jayden, like all other children, today can walk, run, eat normally and play with his peers, as if there was no nightmare for five years of his life. Moreover, Jayson became a local star: the media writes and television makes storylines about him. But there is more! A drug based on cannabis, which fights epilepsy symptoms and Dravet syndrome, named after him – here is the question of whether there should be given the link, as in fact it turns out advertising of another brand).

Jayden’s story is an incredible example confirming that CBD oil is a viable alternative form of drug treatment that can significantly reduce the number of seizures.

 In 2017, studies showed that the use of cannabinoids reduces seizures significantly in patients with Dravet syndrome.

In 2018, cannabidiol was officially recommended for the syndrome treatment in the USA.