Mom: Daughter With Epilepsy 'Enjoying Life More' With Medical Pot
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Twin Cities family is seeing a dramatic improvement in their daughter's health, and they are crediting the new medical marijuana law.
Three-year-old Harlow Hundley started her cannabis prescription on July 1. Her mom, Beth, believed the medical marijuana could help with her daughter's epilepsy and was among the families who fought for legislative approval last year.
Over the last two weeks, Beth Hundley says she has seen a different side of her daughter.
"You can just tell she's feeling better, she's enjoying life more," Beth said.
Epileptic seizures no longer completely rob Harlow of her speech or energy.
"Most of what we're seeing is more verbal. A lot more of the words that she does have, [she's] saying them more frequently and consistently," Beth said.
She credits the change in her daughter's health to medical marijuana. Harlow takes a two-milliliter dose twice a day of a form of medical cannabis called Indigo.
"She gets a very small dose," Beth said. "We started very conservatively."
Harlow began the prescription the day it became legal in Minnesota. Beth says the results were immediate.
"To see this much hope this soon, who knows what the future can bring," she said.
Harlow's parents see improvement nearly every day. She is active, curious and quickly becoming the typical toddler.
"All of a sudden we'll find her in the toilet or on top of our kitchen island, you know, like standing up (laughs), and doing things precocious toddlers generally do that we have not seen from Harlow," she said.
Beth says medical marijuana has not wiped out the seizures completely, but they have gone down dramatically.
Harlow used to get up to 100 seizures a day. Since she started the medical cannabis, the seizures have decreased by about half.
"And things aren't perfect, you know. She still has a very tough form of epilepsy," Hundley said.
With their doctor's help, there will still be adjustments to dosage for the little girl. But the prescription has allowed family to see the next milestone is not far away.
"One word I have not heard yet is 'mama,'" Hundley said. "That's one little selfish goal (laughs)."
The number of patients now able to pick up a medical marijuana prescription has increased in the last week.
Nearly 150 people have paid the fees and finished the paperwork to become involved in the program. That is up from the 90 patients leading up to July 1.
