We're finally breaking the silence about this issue, it's almost becoming a normal thing to self medicate, or maybe it's in my part of the world. I grew up watching my dad take just anything he thinks would work for him and somehow it actually works and he starts thinking he knows better with that particular health issue he had.
Nothing much about this self medicating issue have changed about dad now, I think it even got worse so if there's anyone who needs to be reminded the dangers of self medication, my dad and I've been trying my best to stop him. If I'm to mention my own personal experience, I don't remember having any serious consequences.
But one thing that is sure, I have self medicate before and even very recently. There are some illness we tend to think are not so serious and then we take whatever, especially our most used drug here (paracetamol or panadol) that has proven to cure everything except cancer, liver or kidney problems lol. I'm one of the many abusers.
One of the many times I've self medicating is when I have my monthly visitor. I'm among the ladies who feel like dying when menstrual cramps come in full force. Until I learnt better that my eating habit and lifestyle has a lot to do with the pain, I used drugs self prescribed to escape it every month till it didn't work anymore.
It was the experience that thought me one of the dangers of self medication, your body system gets used to a drug and it stops working for the purpose you take them. If care isn't taken, you keep wanting to take them for the sake of your thinking, not that your body needs it any longer. I struggled to stop using the drugs for it's purpose.
The consequence I learnt from self medication to avoid pains, is that I started using too many kinds of drugs for the same reason. Once one stops working, I'll go for another I think would work or if it was suggested by a friend. In any case, I've only met a real medical personnel about this once or twice that helped me overcome it more easily.
Before that, I can't imagine just how bad it would have gotten if I had kept on taking the drugs I thought was good to save myself from pains. Pains are scary and getting relieved from them is the only thought one thinks about until the worse scenario than just pains and we start regretting our actions. I have learnt better about this and...
My message of Hope to anyone out there reading this is, "Self medication may save you from a pain or problem today but will leave you with something even bigger to fight later if you don't take precaution against the habit now". It's fine to want to be save as fast as possible but don't be too much in a hurry to visit a doctor for advice.
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