By Carolanne Wright
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World
Charlotte Figi. If you’ve seen Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s documentary, WEED, you will recognize the name. Her life story made national headlines when the special aired in 2013.
Charlotte suffers from Dravet’s syndrome, a rare and severe form of epilepsy that does not respond to medication. Usually the seizures begin within the first year of life. For Charlotte, they started when she was 3 months old. The disorder progresses as the child grows older with muscle spasms and status epilepticus (SE) that come in clusters, oftentimes lasting for 30 minutes or longer. Charlotte was having upwards of 300 grand mal seizures a week, which took their toll on her health, development and cognitive processing.
Within a few years, Charlotte had lost the ability to eat, talk and walk.
