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Gogglebox's Steph And Dom Decide To Use Medical Marijuana To Help Their Son

Gogglebox's Steph And Dom Decide To Use Medical Marijuana To Help Their Son

The Channel 4 stars have opened up about their 18-year-old son's treatment in the documentary

Rebecca Shepherd

Rebecca Shepherd

It might be easy for people to assume that Gogglebox stars Steph and Dom Parker sit in their big house drinking champers and larking about.

But in their new documentary, Steph & Dom: Can Cannabis Save Our Son? the pair say that's far from the truth because they've had 'great sadness' and 'great pain' for a long time which they carry daily.

Their 18-year-old son, Max, has a severe form of epilepsy that he's had since he was a child. He can have up to 100 seizures a day which has, over the years, damaged his brain meaning that he has a mental age of a five or six year old child.

Steph and Dom with Max and their daughter, Honor, 15.
Channel 4

After being on medication for 14 years, Steph and Dom are looking into other treatment methods because the risk of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy is much higher as their son gets older.

Dom explained on the Channel 4 documentary which airs tonight: "There's a new product coming to market that could be really good for Max. The possible miracle cure seems to be a byproduct of marijuana."

On November 1 2018 medical cannabis became available for doctors to prescribe to patients within the UK. The move followed high profile cases such as that of Billy Caldwell who was granted permission to use cannabis oil by Home Secretary Sajid Javid to help treat his severe epilepsy.

Steph and Dom Parker, who rose to fame on Channel 4's Gogglebox, spoke to Charlotte Caldwell - Billy's mother - to get advice from her.

Charlotte explained that it wasn't a fast fix or a cure but it controlled Billy's condition - reminiscing on a moment where Billy approached her for the first time to give her a hug which struck a chord with Steph and Dom.

Dom explained: "And if one or two drops of oil could take these things out of his body, I'd be the happiest man alive."

Steph and Dom's son, Max Parker.
Channel 4

In mid-August 2018, the cameras followed Steph and Dom to visit California where they met Sam Vogelstein who was having one seizure every three minutes. After using CBD oil for just two weeks, the youngster was having one or two seizures a day.

After the meeting, Steph said: "I know we're not going to fix him, we will never reverse the damage."

Dom added: "We came to the conclusion that there isn't going to be a cure, he's going to be like this for the rest of our life so the question - will cannabis oil save our son's life - I think it might.

"Will it cure him, no I don't think so but we're going to give it a try."

Steph and Dom have decided that they will give their son medical cannabis.
Channel 4

Even following the legalisation of cannabis-derived medication, Dom explained that it isn't as easy as just getting a prescription and that's it.

Steph added: "You've got to remember for 18 years, every night, we've said goodnight to Max, we've no idea going in the following morning whether he'd still be alive.

"I'm exhausted from fighting, almost from the day he was born we've done nothing but fight for him, fight for all the help we've got, fight for medication, fight for the right to try other medication and here we are we're still fighting."

Steph & Dom: Can Cannabis Save Our Son? airs tonight at 9 and will also be available on Channel 4 On Demand.

Featured Image Credit: Channel 4

Topics: Entertainment, TV and Film, gogglebox, Cannabis, Health