Can your doctor prescribe medicinal cannabis? Tetra Health explores everything you need to know about medicinal cannabis and your GP. Asking your doctor for a referral to a medicinal cannabis prescriber, and for a health summary to take to a prescriber, should be as simple as asking; however, some doctors may not be as willing to provide these items due to their lack of education regarding medicinal cannabis, methods of administration, potential side effects, drug-drug interactions, medicinal benefits or the administrative requirements to apply for approval through the Therapeutic Goods Admi ..read more

With medical cannabis being legal in Australia, many ask whether it's addictive. Medicinal cannabis is being increasingly legally prescribed in Australia and around the world for a range of medical conditions. As a result, it is understandable that doctors and patients have expressed concern regarding the potential risk of addiction or dependence. One of the problems faced in assessing this risk is that cannabis use disorder (CUD) has been widely studied in recreational users but not in patients using cannabis for medicinal purposes. Because there are large differences between recreational ..read more

Epilepsy is a chronic brain disease that affects approximately 65 million people worldwide. Approximately 3% of Australians will experience epilepsy at some point in their lives and over 250,000 Australians are currently living with epilepsy. However, despite the continuous development of antiepileptic drugs, over 30% patients with epilepsy progress to drug-resistant epilepsy[1]. In childhood, epilepsy is the most frequent chronic neurological condition, with approximately 1 in 150 children being diagnosed with a form of epilepsy during the first 10 years of life[2]. Although 4 in 5 children ..read more

While CBD oil is legal for medical use in Australia, there are still some questions about its use, such as ‘will CBD show up on a drug test’. It’s a new world for Australia’s workforce as cannabis medications are being increasingly prescribed by medical practitioners across Australia for a number of different conditions, potentially reducing or replacing a lot of other drugs like benzodiazepines and opioids. There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to drug testing, impairment and what that means while working or driving. The current system, unfortunately, puts a lot of uneducated patients a ..read more

People with Inflammatory Bowel Disease often ask whether medical cannabis can help Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic disease mediated by the immune system that affects the gastrointestinal (GI) tract¹,². People with IBD experience cycles of painful inflammatory flares which result in ulcers, pain, bleeding, diarrhoea, nausea, tiredness, fever, weight loss, and considerable psychologic and emotional burden²,³.  There are three main types of IBD – Crohn’s disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), and a form of indeterminate IBD (IBD-U) when the condition cannot be distinguished ..read more

With medical cannabis being legal in Australia, many ask whether it's addictive. Medicinal cannabis is being increasingly legally prescribed in Australia and around the world for a range of medical conditions. As a result, it is understandable that doctors and patients have expressed concern regarding the potential risk of addiction or dependence. One of the problems faced in assessing this risk is that cannabis use disorder (CUD) has been widely studied in recreational users but not in patients using cannabis for medicinal purposes. Because there are large differences between recreational ..read more

About 1 in 308 Australians are living with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects the control of body movements, such as the loss of ability to move muscles voluntarily, slowness of body movements, tremors, postural instability and difficulty walking, and rigidity or stiffness of the limbs or trunk. Other associated features are a loss of smell, sleep dysfunction, mood disorders, excess salivation, constipation, and excessive periodic limb movements in sleep. As the disease progresses, depression and dementia with significant lo ..read more

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia accounting for 50-70% of cases of dementia. Not all people with dementia have AD. The term “Alzheimer’s disease” is reserved for patients with characteristic changes in the brain including the formation of clumps called amyloid plaques, and of tangled bundles of fibres called tau tangles. In addition, with advancing age, AD can occur alongside other neurodegenerative and vascular diseases[1]. Other forms of dementia include vascular dementia (25%), dementia with Lewy bodies (15%), and frontotemporal dementia[2]. Vascular dementia i ..read more

Endometriosis is an incurable gynaecological disease in which tissue that is similar to the lining of the womb (the endometrium) grows outside it in other parts of the body. Whilst endometriosis most often affects the reproductive organs, endometrial tissue can also be found in the bowel and bladder, and more rarely in lungs, heart, and central nervous system. This abnormal growth can cause extreme pain as well as menstrual irregularities and infertility[1]. The impact of endometriosis Endometriosis remains an underdiagnosed condition, but it is estimated that it affects approximately 10% to 1 ..read more

[Tetra Health and Astrid Dispensary Partnership]01/04/2021 Melbourne, Victoria: Tetra Health launches its first physical clinic. Tetra Health has announced a new partnership with Astrid Dispensary and will be Astrid’s preferred medicinal cannabis clinic partner for in-person consultations, allowing patients to see a Tetra Health doctor in a separate consulting room co-located at the Astrid Dispensary. The benefits of this new partnership include: • More streamlined access to treatment • Access to medicare rebates for eligible patients • In-person consultations Lisa Nguyen, Founder and Head Pha ..read more