Medical Cannabis Update-Week Two

I promised I would give a weekly update on our journey with medical cannabis for our severely autistic son. We are 14 days in!

In Minnesota, medical cannabis was legalized for autism in July 2018. The program is regulated by the state of Minnesota. You can read more HERE about how we got started.

Want to know if medical cannabis is legal for autism in your state?  Click HERE.

After getting a prescription from his doctor and jumping through all the hoops, we started him on the lowest dose possible. Our dispensary offers three blends of medical cannabis. Think of it as three strengths. We started with the lowest.

Cooper’s initial dose was 1 ML twice a day. After 4 days of seeing no improvements, we increased his dose to 2 ML’s twice a day. We have now increased to 3 ML’s twice a day and will stay on this dose for the next two weeks.

I spoke with our Pharmacist a few days ago to discuss any concerns I may be having. Which are none. But I did mention I felt that we weren’t seeing any substantial results. She disagreed after I explained our current ‘breakthroughs.’ She felt these were actually BIG results.

Our goal with medical cannabis has always been to reduce his extreme anxiety, help him be calm, calm his brain and body, and help him to sit and be present in the world around him.

Here is a high level overview of the results we’ve seen over the last week. As always, I encourage you to watch the video. I go into greater detail.

• Cooper asked me to go to Dairy Queen. We ‘chatted’ the whole entire way. He showed me a water tower. He pointed to trees and signs. He showed me a store…which happened to be an oil change place and we called it the car doctor. Which he thought was hilarious. It was like he was seeing the world outside his window for the first time. I started at him in awe while we sat in the drive thru. He waited for his ice cream. He even clapped when it arrived. He was so aware of his surroundings.
• He drank from a cup with a straw. A non-Cooper-approved cup. A cup that we traditionally would have to work on for months and months. He saw it sitting on the counter, grabbed it, and took a drink. Cooper has never done that in his entire life. He doesn’t just ‘try’ food or drink. He doesn’t just ‘try’ new things.
• We took a nap together on Saturday afternoon and as we were lying in bed I watched him staring at me. While Cooper has never really struggled with eye contact, he does struggle to look at someone for longer then a second. I watched him stare at me for minutes. Like he was just seeing me for the first time. He smiled and giggled. He ‘pretended’ to be sleeping unprompted. Meaning he fake snored and closed his eyes. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. He even repeated the word ‘M-O-M’ a bunch of times while staring at me. Like it was the first time he’s ever heard the word.
• We had a party at our house on Saturday. A loud, house-full-of-people, party with lots of kids and chaos. At our last party, Cooper obsessively lined up chairs for hours. He yelled at people. He threw. He was so overwhelmed. He didn’t push anyone or hurt anyone but he really struggled. This is so heartbreaking because he loves parties. He requests one every single day of his life. This time he sat, jumped in the bounce house, listened and even napped. And he ate cake! Which he would normally never do.

I feel like my son is coming to life. Or coming into our life. He is seeing the world around him for the first time. And after so many years of accepting that it may never happen, I feel like I need to pinch myself. I don’t want it to go away.

I can’t wait to see what the next week brings.

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I plan to update weekly on Cooper’s progress. Check back!

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