Pain, anxiety and ongoing sleep problems don’t just go away between 9-5. You can be at your desk, checking emails, ticking things off your list and still be having a crap day.

For freelancers and business owners, it can be even harder to take time off. Being sick doesn’t mean deadlines go away. Or customers. Sometimes, it’s not about how fast you can get back to work. It’s about living your life, looking after yourself.

If the usual treatment has failed

Chronic disease doesn’t come with a time clock. Maybe someone has tried every type of treatment, switched out medicine, had months of appointments back and forth and not found something that really helps.

Cannabis-based therapy could be an option in Britain in some cases. If you choose this route, you’ll need to see a specialist at a medical cannabis clinic like Alternaleaf to be approved for therapy. The clinic accepts referrals from all over the UK for patients who need help with chronic pain, anxiety, PTSD and sleeplessness where other therapies have not been of any real help.

That’s quite a difference. Not everyone who makes an appointment walks out with a prescription. During the examination your medical history, previous therapy and special circumstances will be taken into consideration. And there is a legal side as well. The UK Government has reclassified cannabis-based medicines for medical use to allow specialist doctors to prescribe cannabis-based medicines when there is a clinical need.

Fitting treatment around a working week

Finding the time to take care of your health is half the battle if you’re working full time. Usually it is one appointment. But those half-days out of the office add up fast with consistent follow-up.

This is where online consultations come in handy. They can make the practical side of treatment a great deal easier, but they cannot replace proper medical supervision. A director who spends half the month in another country doesn’t have the same day to day routine as a freelance designer in Cornwall or someone who works in Manchester. It can be a bit easier to fit continuous care around it if you can speak to a clinician from home – or wherever you happen to be working that week.

Getting the prescription is just the first step

It’s not just getting a prescription from the medical side of things. You still need someone keeping an eye on things. Is it working? What about the side effects? Any news from last visit? Sometimes you need to change the prescription, not just re-issue it with the same details next month.

Same thing with medical cannabis. The UK government guidance sets out the restrictions on cannabis-based medicines and how they are prescribed in the UK. Most of them are unlicensed, and prescriptions are based on clinical judgement.

This is not very exciting, and maybe that is the point. In health care, we’re accustomed to having a prescription, a follow-up appointment and a conversation about whether a treatment is working. Medical cannabis should not be an aside in the debate on recreational marijuana. It’s a conversation between the patient and their clinician about health, so treatment can be accessed legally.

What does this mean for the employer?

A manager doesn’t need to know the details of someone’s therapy, and most employees wouldn’t want to sit down and discuss their medical history over coffee in the workplace kitchen. They shouldn’t need to.

A touch of common sense. Might be good for someone who needs a little room to plan an occasional appointment. That could mean bumping a meeting to another day or making up the time another morning an hour later. Sometimes it doesn’t even take a new policy and three pages of paper.

That kind of flexibility isn’t always easy for a small business, of course. When you’re a team of six, one person being out really is noticed. But you’ve got time frames to work with. You have clients that want answers. Work and well-being, however, are not exactly the same. There are people who may come in every morning and do a great job, but they’re working with a long-term health issue in the background.

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