Today on Hempresent Vivian is joined by Vera Twomey the mother Ava Twomey the Irish Med Canna-Mom Ava is a seven-year-old, beautiful young girl from Ireland. At the age of four months old, she had her first grand mal seizure. It lasted for 45 minutes. Shortly after, she was diagnosed with a condition called Dravet syndrome, a debilitating form of epilepsy that doesn’t respond to conventional medication and leaves a host of developmental challenges in its wake. Ava’s seizures can last anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours. One seizure was so bad, it left Ava in cardiac arrest. After years of failed attempts to get Ava’s seizures under control, the family was granted permission from the Irish government to treat her with a CBD-only strain of medical cannabis. Ava’s seizures reduced dramatically, by approximately 85%. While on this CBD treatment, Ava experienced her longest seizure free stretch in 7 years, a previously unreachable 11 days. This is indeed a great start. A combination of CBD (one of the compounds found in cannabis) and THC (the psychoactive component in cannabis) is widely accepted as sound treatment among knowing medical cannabis professionals and among many parents who have tried it with their children in states that allow it. Sadly, there is still shockingly little clinical evidence to support these case studies. However, the esteemed European Journal of Epilepsy, “Seizure” published Israel’s 2016 clinical study on cannabis medicine in the treatment of epilepsy. The conclusion demonstrated extremely promising results.The ratios they used in their study of 74 pediatric patients were 20% CBD 0.5-1% THC. Vera has been a dear friend of CananTech’s since we first met her at the International Conference on Medical Cannabis hosted at the European Parliament in Brussels last year. We have been following her story closely ever since. I had the great pleasure of speaking with Vera earlier this week, from their new temporary residence in Holland.