“By her fourth event, she just couldn't move. She couldn't walk. She just was exhausted, tired, not feeling well,” Maryann Estrada-Lujan, Annalise’s mother told KVOA.
When her parents took her to the Banner University Medical Center (UMC) in Tucson, Annalise was diagnosed with a stomach bug and sent home. The next night, however, she had her first seizure. Concerned about the health of their daughter, Annalise’s parents took her back to the UMC. Again, she was sent home without further treatment. The next morning her condition deteriorated quickly, with the girl being plagued by more seizures.
As her parents rushed her to the hospital, the 12-year-old fell into a crippling seizure. According to her mom, she was put on life support and was put into an induced coma to save her brain from damage. Two and a half weeks later she was airlifted to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with an extremely rare epilepsy syndrome called Febrile Infection-Related Epilepsy Syndrome (FIRES).
As noted by Annalise's dad, only one in a million children will get this syndrome. Experts believe that this little-understood condition occurs after an ordinary cold or stomach virus spreads to the brain or autoimmune system.
It usually starts two weeks after a child has had a mild fever. FIRES then quickly gets worse until patients have seizures continuously, with some children having up to 100 seizures a day. Since these constant seizures can lead to brain injury and death, doctors had to put her into an induced coma.
Annalise came out of the coma after less than 48-hours of CBD treatment
To bring her back to the living, doctors had to find a way to control the seizures. Unfortunately, regular anti-epilepsy drugs don't work on this extremely rare condition. This prompted Annelise’s mother to research other, alternative ways to save her daughter’s life.
During her search, she stumbled on a cannabis-derived drug, called cannabidiol or CBD oil. Unlike Rick Simpson’s hemp oil, which is known for its cancer-fighting properties, CBD oil has very low levels of THC, which is the substance that creates the cannabis high.
With the substance not being approved at that time and no other route to take, Annalise's doctors had to rush CBD’s approval through the FDA and DEA. Currently, cannabis for both medical and recreational use is legal in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, California, Maine, and Massachusetts.
Less than 48 hours after her first CBD oil treatment, the 12-year-old was cured of the constant seizures and opened her eyes.
“She opened her eyes, and she was scared. She was afraid. She cried. And, I whispered to her that she was very strong, she's beautiful, and she's strong, and she needed to keep breathing, and she did,” Maryann said.
Although Annalise remains in the hospital for further recovery and to regain the cognitive functions she had before, cannabidiol oil has saved this little girl’s life.
The Daily Mail Online reported on a groundbreaking study where scientists at New York University and Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital discovered that CBD could reduce convulsive seizures by nearly 50 percent in children under 18 with the Dravet syndrome. Another rare and severe form of epilepsy.
While experts don’t want to call it a cure, because patients must keep taking it daily to prevent seizures, CBD oil offers hope for nearly three million Americans who suffer from epilepsy. For a third of these people, standard epilepsy drugs do not work to control their symptoms. They may even do more harm than good.
Though there is still a lot of controversy surrounding the medical use of marijuana, more people are discovering its amazing healing effects. Annalise’s family has started a GoFundMe page to raise awareness about the rare condition and the use of CBD oil.
Stay informed about the healing effects of cannabis at CannabisCures.news.
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