March is Endometriosis Awareness Month in the UK
With the commencement of Endometriosis Awareness Month in the UK, Sapphire Medical Clinics (“Sapphire Medical”), the UK’s first CQC-registered medical cannabis clinic, which has treated several such patients, pledges to support the approximately 10% of women between 25 and 40 years of age who are impacted by endometriosis.
Endometriosis is often associated with pelvic or abdominal pain but can also cause significant pain elsewhere in the body and lead to other symptoms, including painful sex, reduced fertility and fatigue. The pain typically begins a few days before a woman gets her period and can last its duration.
The pain and other symptoms of endometriosis can significantly impact a woman’s quality of life. This is exacerbated by delays in diagnosis: on average it takes 7.5 years from the onset of symptoms for a woman to receive a diagnosis. This delay is in part due to implicit bias, which involves “associations outside conscious awareness that lead to a negative evaluation of a person on the basis of irrelevant characteristics such as race or gender.”[1] Implicit bias is prevalent across the healthcare profession.
Pain Management
Conventional Endometriosis-related pain treatment utilises pain killers and/or hormonal treatment, with a role for surgical intervention in appropriate patients. Medicinal cannabis is an alternative when first line therapies have not achieved adequate clinical benefit. Until November 2018, when medical cannabis became legal, women suffering from Endometriosis and whose traditional pain treatment was not working, were unable to access legal medical cannabis to treat their pain. They were subsequently forced to self-medicate by purchasing illicit cannabis, where there is no guarantee of its quality or contamination with harmful substances. Sapphire Medical’s mission is to improve patient access to MHRA-approved medical cannabis to treat debilitating pain as a result of endometriosis as well as other chronic-pain-related conditions when their conventional therapies have not worked.
Dr Wendy Holden, Rheumatologist and Pain Specialist at Sapphire Medical, comments, “Endometriosis impacts 1.5 million women in the UK and therefore Sapphire Medical strongly supports Endometriosis Awareness Month and is committed to supporting women who suffer from it. As our knowledge of pain conditions that respond positively to medical cannabis grows, Sapphire Medical wants to ensure more patients know that medical cannabis is an option for their pain.
“Moreover, the issue of implicit bias is one that we take very seriously at Sapphire Medical as it relates to all of our patients. To ensure a patient-centred approach is always taken, Sapphire Medical has instituted a system that includes a rigorous process to prescribing medication. This includes a strict triaging process and a multi-disciplinary team deciding every potential new patient prescription. As such, our patients can rest assured their wellbeing is at the centre of everything we do.”
Andie Willis, a patient of Sapphire Medical who previously suffered with Endometriosis and is prescribed medical cannabis for a chronic-pain-related condition, shares, “Endometriosis is an evil condition that brings a raft of issues to women, including excruciating pain. Medical cannabis has been very helpful in managing my pain and it has been refreshing to be able to discuss my pain with the clinicians at Sapphire Medical as they are committed to truly listening to their patients.”
To understand if you or a loved one is eligible for treatment with medical cannabis, please fill out the Sapphire Eligibility Assessment.
