Hi Claire,

A  very warm welcome to our friendly forum.

I am so sorry to hear about your mum’s diagnosis. If you use the search engine on the blue banner at the top of this page and insert the necessary keywords, you will bring up previous posts on this topic. I hope that you find these helpful.

Please keep in touch and let us know how you mum gets on. We are always here for both of you whenever you want to talk.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Welcome to the forum Claire although I'm sorry to read about your mum's diagnosis and for the reason you are posting.

There are on-going discussions about cannabis oil and even though research is ongoing there isn’t enough reliable evidence to prove that cannabinoids – whether natural or synthetic – can effectively treat cancer in patients at the present time, as discussed in this very interesting blog article. I would also recommend you read what Moderator Helen has said about this in another discussion on the forum just here. 

We have some information about alternative and complementary therapies on our website as well as a discussion about the impact they may have just here. Do make sure you let your mum's medical team know what you are looking in to as it may interfere with other treatments that have been given to your mum by the doctor, and have other side effects and risks as well.

Kind regards, 

Steph, Cancer Chat Moderator

Hi Claire,

Have you exhausted all conventional treatments?

I ask because alternative and complementary therapies are often confused. The former involves a rejection of conventional, science and evidence based practice and replacing it with alternative practices. The latter involves using non-conventional practice to supplement conventional practice. 

There are a lot of people making fortunes out of desperate people by selling false hope along with products of dubious origin.

Cannabis oil in particular seems to attract a lot of scammers. Many genuinely believe in the product and take care over the quality of it, others cynically sell any old oil and mis-label it as cannabis oil. There's no legal protection as so far it is technically illegal to buy and sell cannabis products in the UK - at best the situation is confused due to conflicting government guidance.

There are Facebook groups which expose the worst of these scammers. If you do go down that route, you might want to check out FB to see which suppliers to avoid.

Good luck

Dave

Hi Dan,

I love your blog - you seem have hit on a good balance between sensible advice and an accessible and amusing style. I especially liked the explanation about CBD.

Your story about facing a disciplinary when returning to work after surgery was horrendous. Like you, I was initially given a lousy prognosis which thankfully didn't happen. Luckily my colleagues were all pleased for me -as far as I know ;-) I then retired on ill-health grounds thinking I'd not last a year and shared this with my colleagues. Two years later, I was working part-time as a contractor and was at a conference where I bumped into a former colleague from years ago who had heard my news via the grapevine. He looked like he'd seen a ghost - which he explained when he blurted out "everyone at work was told you were dead!". 

Cheers

Dave