Cannabis oil relieves chronic seizures suffered by six-year-old niece of Aston Villa star Gabby Agbonlahor

She’s the youngest legally-approved user of the drug

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The parents of a six-year-old girl from Birmingham have been treating their daughter’s undiagnosed brain condition with cannabis oil.

Jayla Agbonlahor, niece of Aston Villa footballer Gabby Agbonlahor, was rushed to hospital when she was just days old after her parents had noticed that she’d stopped breathing.

Initially, doctors suspected epilepsy, however, after five months of hospital care they identified that the problem was in baby Jayla’s brain, reports the Sunday Mercury.

Her condition left her suffering from regular seizures which hospitalised her every three to four weeks.

Up until recently she was unable to walk, talk, eat or drink and was fed only through a tube in her stomach.

She also suffered from a cardiac arrest as a baby.

“Watching her so lifeless has damaged me inside,” mother Louise Bostock wrote on her child’s Go Fund Me page, which has so far raised £5,526 for Bostock and her family, who are based in Erdington, Birmingham.

What’s more, Jayla’s condition proved resistant to traditional medication and her parents were told by doctors that she would most likely die at an early age.

After researching the benefits of cannabis oil, 33-year-old Bostock began treating her daughter in secret when she was four-years-old, to the subsequent dismay of her doctors.

Within weeks Jayla was having fewer seizures and had even started eating normally and smiling.

Despite the positive results, Bostock was required to meet with police regarding her illegal administration of the class-B drug to her daughter.

She was cleared to legally use the oil in 2015, though she is unable to purchase it in the UK and must order in bulk from Holland at £80 a pop.

Bostock is thrilled with the results, explaining that her daughter has a much happier life now that she has fewer seizures and is eating normally and smiling.

She hopes that the NHS will take notice of her daughter’s case and consider approving cannabis as a medical form of treatment in the UK.

However, whilst the cannabis oil has given Jayla’s parents a glimmer of hope, her condition remains undiagnosed and the six-year-old recently underwent an operation, according to the family’s Twitter page.