Montana Connect Magazine
www.mtconnectmagazine.com
By Misty Carey
Tricia had her first grand Mal seizure when she was 15-years-old. She kept it a secret from everyone, even her parents. She was afraid to be sick. A year later, she seized again when she was riding in a car with a friend. Now one person knew her terrible secret. It wasn’t until she had a full blown incident during a a trigonometry test in her junior year of high school, right in front of everyone, that she had to admit her problem.
The doctors said that she had late on-set epilepsy, triggered by raging hormones of adolescence. They said that she would grow out of it, but she never did. Tricia has had seizures now for the last 23 years.
Research has shown that some seizure disorders have a hereditary component. Both Tricia's cousin and her great grandmother had seizures. Her great grandfather would shoo them from the room when his wife was “having a spell.” Tricia also had fallen down the stairs and cracked her head on a cement wall when she was four-years-old. Perhaps that accident contributed to her condition. What ever the cause, the result is that Tricia suffers from both grandma) falling unconscious) and petite Mal (little spells) types of seizures.
She tried many medications and finally found one, Tegretol, which controls her grand mal seizures. She conscientiously takes that prescription and suffers a grand mal seizure only once every five or six years. But nothing ever worked for the petite mal seizures. She would go two weeks without one and then have 20 over the course of three days.
What is it like to have a little seizure? While this pre-seizure warning is often called “aura,” Tricia says her aura is more of a feeling than something visual. Then the feeling intensifies and rushes through her body. Her brain seizes up and stops. It affects her speech center and she can’t talk. Afterwards, she feels very tired. And once she has a seizure, a cascade of them begins, each stronger than the last. It can happen anywhere and at any time. It’s very debilitating.
Tricia’s seizures and her fear of them controlled her life. Crowded or noisy places seemed to set off her spells so she became agoraphobic and rarely left the house, sending her children even for groceries. She suffered from deep depression, common with the complicated brain activity of seizure disorder, and just stopped living. One day she decided she’d had enough and it was time to change.
She moved to Montana where she had family. When her brother saw how much she still struggled with her seizures, he suggested she try the medical marijuana. A Vermont neurologist had previously suggested she try the herb but it was illegal there then and the product she could find was low quality. She applied for her Montana cannabis card and found some strains that work well for her.
When Tricia feels that telltale aura of an on-coming petite mal seizure, she takes a few hits of her medicine and sits down to wait. She says that it feels like it changes her brain chemistry and calms the synapses that wanted to start firing wildly. The seizure melts away. And since the first incident is avoided, it brakes the recurrent cycle and the railroad train of seizures stops. It helps every single time.
Tricia said that she had let her epilepsy control her life. Now she has control over her epilepsy. This has made all the difference to her. Since she knows she can use medical marijuana to control her disorder, she enjoys a greater sense of security and safety. If gives her freedom from her disability.
“I have a tool, a way to help myself,: Tricia said. “In the past, I needed to pop pills all day. I was limited to what I could do. Now I just go and do.”
Lots of hard work goes into producing a high quality medicinal cannabis product that can help people. Tricia volunteers in the facility where her medicine is grown. She says if even only one other person’s life is changed by medical cannabis the way her has been, all the hard work is worth it.
