Our 3 year old boy is in the final process of officially being diagnosed, and we are probably like many other families , in that we are always online desperately looking for help/ advice that may help our boy, we have come across articles on cannabis oil ( albeit mainly on American sites ) has any one got any views on this? Is it legal here ,does it help, has anyone any experience of it ?
No, it isn't legal here and I would take a very dim view of any parent administering drugs to children. I'd have to question what you hope to achieve by using any type of chemical cosh on a child, legal or otherwise.
My best advice would be to be a proper parent - learn your child and help him. Blatting his brain is, in my view, abuse of the worst kind. Others will think differently.
Adult choices are a vastly different matter and are not relevant to your post.
Cbd oil is legal in uk now sold by holland and Barrett very unfair comment to say be a better parent to your child when nothing else works such as conventional medicine you have to try other ways it's hardly abuse to try and help your child cbd oil helps anormously in people with autism .
I am not medically qualified but would be very cautious. There are all kinds of fake 'treatments' out there that supposedly 'help enormously' but are positively harmful: http://network.autism.org.uk/content/westminster-commission-autism-reports-harmful-interventions
NICE's clinical guidelines summarise evidence against biomedical treatments for autism itself : https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/CG142/chapter/1-Guidance#interventions-for-autism
I'm also suspicious when someone posts on a forum saying "I've just looked on the internet and found this new treatment" - in some cases, it can be a way of attracting desperate parents to something private companies and charlatans are making money from. (I noticed this here recently with another spurious 'treatment' costing thousands of pounds with a company based in Panama.)
If the intention is reducing epileptic fits that distress a child, there may be some limited evidence for cannabidiol (CBD) as an anti-epileptic agent: https://www.epilepsybehavior.com/article/S1525-5050(18)30009-X/fulltext
There was a recent story about CBD and a rare form of epilepsy that the Daily Mail gave a misleading headline to: https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/cannabis-oil-may-help-treat-rare-type-epilepsy/ CBD has not yet been shown to be a safe and effective treatment through clinical trials - for anything AFAIK, and of course autism is a difference, not something to be 'cured'. If you produced scientific evidence from a peer-reviewed journal that 'cbd oil helps anormously in people with autism', then it might be worth considering that information (there appears to be one clinical trial in progress at a private hospital in Jerusalem which interested people may want to check the results of: https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02956226?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT02956226 ). Otherwise, I have to say, stick to the professional advice and guidelines and save your money.
Awareness and acceptance that autism is a lifelong condition is key to a happy outcome.
It's because I went looking for scientific evidence that it's 'safe and effective' for anything related to autism (using PubMed), and don't see much beyond one trial that hasn't reported yet.
Here's five pages of article links from Science Daily:
Autism and Cannabidiol
There has been many years of research, just not in the UK.
Please, share the links to the research articles on CBD. It doesn't have to be from the UK, research is international, so any valid research articles would be ok. If you could let people know about the research, I'm sure it will greatly benefit a lot of people here. Even though the original post is 3 years old, people other than the original poster could still read about it. And if there is sufficient scientific evidence that it is helpful, then I'm in favour of promoting it as well. But you should back up your statements with solid evidence and logic.
How can you say 'anxiolytic' is not relevant to core autistic features?
Some autistic people are not very anxious. Maybe half are, but it varies from time to time and situation to situation. So anxiety is not itself a 'core' feature of autism (using that word in the same way as NICE). Meanwhile, pumping someone full of diazepam is likely to make them feel very relaxed, regardless of whether they are autistic or not.
You think disproportionate sensory processing and social communication issues cause no anxiety?
They are a factor, yes. But it sounds like you're not suggesting CBD in your experience significantly reduces hypersensitivity or increases typical social communication.
Are you autistic yourself?
I have a diagnosis of 'ASC/AS' from the NHS, and identify as autistic because that's the way my differences from 'the norm' (analytic focus, impersonal connection, executive dysfunction etc) are seen nowadays.
science unfortunately is part of a commercial enterprise so limited and biased
Most science is not commercial, and the activity is mostly about revealing and avoiding bias.
without real life experience its worthless
Science is based on real life experience. It's just structured so we don't fool ourselves.
After all that, by the way, I would say that I'm in favour of legalising cannabis for recreational as well as medical uses. I'm just against fads. (And of course worry about any claim to make an autistic person more like a typical person rather than change the situation causing distress.)
Fully aware of the bleach, quack and electro shock abuses ... but the post is about CBD.
There has been many years of research, just not in the UK.
I think their is a level of gratuitous ignorance on the subject here.
Anyway, I expect the original poster of 3 years ago has moved on now. I'm not a debater and there is nothing to be gained from commenting further, so I'll turn reply notifications off.
Agree with Cassandro regarding scientific evidence. Having scientific evidence would mean that they have tested it on a lot of people and have found it effective and safe for the majority of people they tested it on. I'm glad you found something that works for you. But with anecdotal evidence, you cannot be confident that it will be safe or effective for others. It is possible that it is effective for a lucky few, but may be useless or even be harmful for others. Therefore scientific evidence is needed. If you try something that is not scientifically supported, it means risking being cheated for lots of money or even ending up with unwanted side-effects (which could make the condition worse and some may even be irreversible). There have been parents who wanted to help their children with autism and gave them bleach to drink, https://mobile.twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/960295540868214785, so it's necessary to consider the potential harms and benefits before trying something that is not scientifically supported.
Agree with Cassandro regarding scientific evidence. Having scientific evidence would mean that they have tested it on a lot of people and have found it effective and safe for the majority of people they tested it on. I'm glad you found something that works for you. But with anecdotal evidence, you cannot be confident that it will be safe or effective for others. It is possible that it is effective for a lucky few, but may be useless or even be harmful for others. Therefore scientific evidence is needed. If you try something that is not scientifically supported, it means risking being cheated for lots of money or even ending up with unwanted side-effects (which could make the condition worse and some may even be irreversible). There have been parents who wanted to help their children with autism and gave them bleach to drink, https://mobile.twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/960295540868214785, so it's necessary to consider the potential harms and benefits before trying something that is not scientifically supported.
There has been many years of research, just not in the UK.
Please, share the links to the research articles on CBD. It doesn't have to be from the UK, research is international, so any valid research articles would be ok. If you could let people know about the research, I'm sure it will greatly benefit a lot of people here. Even though the original post is 3 years old, people other than the original poster could still read about it. And if there is sufficient scientific evidence that it is helpful, then I'm in favour of promoting it as well. But you should back up your statements with solid evidence and logic.
Fully aware of the bleach, quack and electro shock abuses ... but the post is about CBD.
There has been many years of research, just not in the UK.
I think their is a level of gratuitous ignorance on the subject here.
Anyway, I expect the original poster of 3 years ago has moved on now. I'm not a debater and there is nothing to be gained from commenting further, so I'll turn reply notifications off.
