Unawarely Aware: The disease of Self-medication
By “Hannan Sher”.
Disease is an abnormal condition that impairs the normal functioning of a body. Disease can affect whole world(pandemic), a region, a person or any organ.
Disease is of many types but in this article the main focus is on psychological disease (the abnormal thoughts, feelings, behavior). The disease/disorder of behavior (repetitive, stubborn behavior that cause distress in person’s & other’s life) perfectly interlinks with the disease of self-medication.
Self-medication is medication of ourselves without advice of experts. It includes self-diagnosis, self-expertise, self-prescription & self-inscription. It purely based on the self-knowledge, experiences and community myths.
Community myths are based on what we received from our elders whether they are right or wrong we continue to follow without research.
Some supporting facts towards the topics are:
First, we take medicine on basis of myth and self-experiences e.g. if someone has developed fever (patient take paracetamol) without knowing the cause, duration, severity and underline mechanism of disease which may causes:
Underline damage to remain untreated, causes toxicity results in renal disorder, On and off fever with increasing severity occurs and in dangerous progressive stages approach towards doctors is costly and sometimes useless because disease proceeds untreatable level.
Second, the use of antibiotics is very common with symptoms like cough fever, chill, whooping cough, diarrheas etc. People take antibiotics like Ciprofloxacin, amoxicillin etc. Frequently without physicians’ advice on their own.
As a result:
Resistance develops against these antibiotics.
If they used correct antibiotic the dose is not adjusted properly so the stages at which they reach the hospital they require heavy antibiotics which may harm them.
Third, The Self-medication in pregnancy. Pregnancy is an attention seeking condition which requires care and vigilance. So, the decisions taken during pregnancy should be with care. The self-medication like the use of NSAIDs, antihypertensive, antibiotics etc. If used improperly these may cause the relief of symptoms for short period but can lead to the effects like miscarriage, bone defects, kidney damage, lung diseases and other life-threatening conditions.
Another dilemma related to self-medication is:
People using certain drugs for the relief of the disease on the prescription of physician, they refer the drug to the other people considering that they have the same symptoms, so they are having same disease as they are suffering from. This is totally not based on history and proper diagnosis from physician. As a result, this may lead to resistance, toxicity, hypersensitivity, auto Immunity and other lethal conditions.
Self-medication is more and more common in the developing countries depending upon the fact that they have financial issues, community myths, ignorance, lack of time, common practice and frequent use of uncooked knowledge which make it awarely unaware disease.
In short, the frequent and overlooked use of self-medication should be discouraged otherwise it continue to cost lives. The unaware use of self-medication reflects the lack of knowledge of health in a certain region. We have to think individually, as community and on government level to eradicate this disease. The steps like advertisement on social places, T.V commercial, financial stability and proper environment in hospital etc. should be done. Concerning point is that in many areas such as villages the approach to health sector is costly and difficult. Government should provide the facilities to address this problem. WHO recommends that the 5% of total budget should be spent on health department, by fulfilling this criterion many problems will be addressed.
My name is Hannan Sher, and I am a 4th-year MBBS student from Chiniot. Alongside my medical studies, I am deeply passionate about writing, both in Urdu and English. Writing, for me, is not just a creative outlet but a means to raise awareness about the often-overlooked aspects of our surroundings.
