A British dad has opened up on his experience after being prescribed medicinal cannabis to help him cope with his ADHD.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a condition that roughly 2.6 million people in the UK have been diagnosed with. Of those 694,000 children and children and around 1.9 million are adults.
It is a diagnosis that is often missed, with some people only being diagnosed later in life.
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Some symptoms include making careless errors in schoolwork or at work; trouble paying attention; and having issues when it comes to organising.
For Liam Hunt, from Huntingdon in England, the diagnosis came during his adult life when he was 32 years old. Now aged 37, the dad-of-one has turned to prescriptions from a private medical cannabis clinic to help deal with the disorder.
But after experiencing issues with two drugs prescribed his way, he sought out alternative treatment via medicinal cannabis.
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Cannabis is, of course, illegal to buy in the UK. But your doctor can prescribe you it for particular conditions, with it available on the NHS if issued by a specialist hospital doctor.
"The first tablet my GP prescribed me just made me sweat a lot, which really wasn’t nice," Liam explained when speaking about the prescription drug known as xaggitin.
"I was just constantly drinking water to rehydrate, and it just made me feel a lot worse."
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He then went on to another form of medication called lisdexamfetamine, which he described as 'okay but it’s really messed with my sleep and my appetite'.
While on the drugs, Liam says he still found himself struggling to cope with how his mind was reacting due to his ADHD.
"I would constantly be thinking about what happened throughout the whole day. Everything would just play in my mind," he said.
After seeking out therapy, the Cambridgeshire dad discussed alternative treatment such as prescribed cannabis.
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And following on from an initial consultation with specialist doctors at Alternaleaf, he was prescribed with 20 grams a month and spreads the cost of all of the appointments he needs by paying a membership fee of £15 per month.
After starting this treatment alongside the lisdexamfetamine, Liam explained how the cannabis helped 'centre him'.
“At the end of the day, when I get home, I will take my dog for a walk, and that’s when I will vape the medical cannabis," he says. "It gives me the chance to settle down and it calms me. It centres me, if you wish. It makes everything silent in my head.
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“My thought process is all over the place. It used to take ages to get anything done.
"Now, I'm slowly getting used to putting my life in order. It's quite simply easier to control life. It really helps me to eat and sleep much better, too, and eases the side effects of the lisdexamfetamine.”
As of 2023, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence estimates the global prevalence of ADHD in children to be around five percent, and in adults in the UK at three to four percent.
With diagnoses increasing, demand on prescription drugs is growing at a rate that cannot keep up, with shortages being experienced across the country.
The NHS reported a shortage last autumn as a result of a combination of manufacturing issues and an increase in global demand.
Medicinal cannabis has been available in the UK since 2018.
Tom Earnshaw