Can Your Pet's Seizures be Treated with Hemp Oil?

Unless you’ve had a pet with epilepsy or other seizure-inducing conditions, you may not even be aware that it’s possible. Sadly, it is.Pets can have seizures, and the first time you have to witness it, it will break your heart.

The worst part about it is that your comfort options are limited.

If you’ve got a human friend or relative who gets them, you can talk about it before it happens.They know what to expect, and what’s going on, but that’s not the case with your pet.Literally all they know is that suddenly, for whatever reason, their body is betraying them.They have no idea why, and there’s no way you can communicate it to them.About all you can do is hold them, comfort them, and take care of them in the aftermath.

How big a problem is this?As you might expect, statistics are a bit spotty in this area, but according to the best available data, nearly 6% (5.7%) of family pets suffer from some kind of condition that results in seizures, with epilepsy being far and away the single biggest contributor.

There’s no cure, and what few medications are available to help control seizures in pets are fairly expensive.Add to that the fact that most people don’t have any kind of pet insurance, and it can leave pet owners in a real bind.

On the one hand, obviously, you want to do any and everything you can for your four-legged best friend, but the cost can put effective medications out of reach for many people.

Fortunately, there’s an answer.

In recent years, there’s been a growing body of research done on the effectiveness of using marijuana to treat a variety of illnesses and diseases, including those that cause seizures.The results of that research are compelling, and the list of conditions medical marijuana can help with grows almost by the week.

The title of this article concerns hemp oil, not medical marijuana, so you may be wondering at this point why we’re talking about it.The answer is simply this:

Along with research on the effects and effectiveness of medical marijuana has been companion research looking into exactly how and why the drug is so effective.

The psychoactive effects of THC have been widely known and well-understood for decades.That’s the compound responsible for actually getting you high, and is what most people think about when they think marijuana.

It turns out though, that the THC doesn’t do the heavy lifting where direct medical benefits are concerned.That’s a different compound in the same plant, called Cannabidiol, or CBD for short.

While it’s true that there’s been limited research into the effects of CBD on animal diseases and conditions, the general rule of thumb is this:Most of the medicine designed for the family dog are based on medicines given to humans, but they’re only about a third as strong.

Given that, it’s logical to assume that if products containing a high concentration of CBD are effective at controlling seizures in humans (and they are), then they’ll also be effective in pets, and there’s a growing body of anecdotal evidence that bears this out.

The long and the short of it then, is that there’s good news.There is a safe and effective way of controlling your pet’s seizures that doesn’t involve having to buy expensive medicines, and that’s good news indeed.