Now legal in the UK, medical cannabis offers hope to those living with chronic pain and illness. Mary Biles investigates what researchers know about this cutting-edge treatment so far, and what it takes to secure a prescription.
It’s not unusual to start experiencing aches and pains as we get older. For most, this is easy enough to remedy by picking up good habits such as doing yoga, increasing weight-bearing exercise and keeping our estrogen levels topped up with HRT. For some women, however, chronic pain requires more serious intervention. And with precious few truly effective treatments for chronic pain, our second half of life can be a time when we find ourselves being prescribed all kinds of pharmaceutical drugs.
This was the case for Julie Durran, whose health began to decline when she hit perimenopause at 40 and experienced debilitating migraines and pain. Doctors eventually realised that Julie had been living with undiagnosed Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disorder that can result in painful joint dislocations. Julie discovered that she’d been living with the condition for most of her adult life but the change in hormones during menopause had made symptoms unbearable.
‘I’ve met many women whose chronic health conditions have started with menopause,’ says Julie. ‘But this isn’t talked about enough.’
The next seven years passed in a blur. The medication Julie had been prescribed left her feeling, in her own words, like a zombie. She lost her business, her weight increased dramatically and she needed the aid of a mobility scooter to get around. Life became pretty desperate. It was only once she’d sunk to an all-time low that she decided to try cannabis.
Medical cannabis isn’t right for everyone, but in Julie’s case the improvement was immediate. Her chronic pain eased up and she also experienced relief from anxiety, insomnia, night sweats and brain fog.
Cannabis and the UK
While Julie, now 54, first acquired cannabis illicitly, she later decided to pursue a medical cannabis prescription. Many private clinics have sprung up since medical cannabis was first made legal in the UK in 2018.
If this is the first time you’ve heard that medical cannabis is legal in the UK, you are not alone. In a recent survey, almost 60% of those questioned were not aware that cannabis can be legally prescribed in the UK for medicinal purposes. But just because it’s legal to prescribe, doesn’t mean it’s easy to secure a prescription. Only doctors on the specialist register can prescribe cannabis, and because clinical trials are lacking, it�
