Not too long ago, I learned the truth about the human body gaining tolerance for pills and drugs. I’ve always known this, but at the time, it felt just like another thing doctors said to get you to visit them all the time. However, when it happened to someone that I know personally, I became a believer at once.
It’s kind of like how addiction works. The first time, you take only a little and it does the job. However, over time, that little stops being enough, and you start needing more for it to do the same job. That’s because your body system has built up a tolerance for that amount, and it won’t be enough anymore. And that’s how addiction starts. Soon enough, they’ll be taking all manner of things just to get to that same place that a little pill could get them in the past.
A close friend of mine can’t take malaria medicine and antibiotics (pills) anymore. She was one of those people who used to self-medicate a lot. And in this sense, I mean the kind where every little ailment would be attributed to Malaria. The coloring of urine is seen as a symptom of malaria (even though it can also be a sign of dehydration), so when she sees even the slightest hue of yellow in her urine, she would hurry to buy malaria drugs, taking them as if she were taking Vitamin C.
She also did it when she felt headaches or had a slight fever. When she had a cold and catarrh, she saw it as an early sign of malaria and took drugs. Just like that. In a year, she could treat malaria 15 to 20 times. Yeah, sometimes twice in a month! That’s how bad it was. But then, when she finally fell sick with the actual malaria, she found out that the drugs were not working. She was self-medicating for over a week, but saw that she was only getting worse, and that was when she was rushed to the hospital.
After tests, the doctors told her that her body had built tolerance to malaria drugs and antibiotics that she had been taking. It was no longer enough to combat the disease. So, she had to either work with a drip or with an injection. But drugs were no longer possible for her. And that was how her self-medication journey ended. When she falls ill, she goes to the hospital, and they either use drips or injections. But she doesn’t take pills anymore.
Honestly, I don’t know the science behind this, I don’t know if the tolerance is for the pills themselves, or what the pills contain. Which, in this case, is usually artemether and lumefantrine. But I don’t know anything about medicine, so that will be an issue for those in the medical field.
Anyway, this taught me to wise up as well. Back when I was in school and working, I sucked terribly at taking care of myself. I got carried away with work, and many times, I forgot to even eat. This caused me to eat late at night or not at all. Sometimes, I’d go to bed hungry, and then go to school the next day without eating. Not because there’s no food, but I just don’t have time. After a while, I noticed that I was always having a fever when I was in school; I would have a fever and serious headaches.
I took paracetamol, but it never worked. This was because I was operating on a messed-up diet and sleep system. It got to a point where I knew that I had to take charge of myself because it was getting out of hand. I was getting symptoms of malaria, down to the colored urine, but I knew it wasn’t the disease.
I had to change some habits at once. I started eating better, which many times required me to buy food if I didn’t have the time to cook it. I also started drinking lots of water. As in, people have no idea how powerful drinking water can be. Sometimes, you might be having a splitting headache, you’d take painkillers, and they won’t work. But once you drink a cup of warm water, the headache will vanish at once. Drinking more water also clears the body of waste, making the urine clear again.
It wasn’t easy, but I made it work. I managed to cross that period by changing some habits instead of resorting to pills. And I still use those tips today. I drink lots of water, I eat well, and I also try to sleep well. These simple things, we tend to underestimate the effect that they have on the human body.
It’s not everything that we’d rush to the hospital for or get pills for. Sometimes, the problem might just be dehydration or lack of sleep. Once that is fixed, you’re well on your way. Whether you like it or not, the more you take pills, the more your body gets used to them, and the more you’d need to feel better. That’s why for many people, two tablets of paracetamol are no longer enough for them; they have to take four to feel the kick.
And that, my friends, is how addiction starts. It’s usually with painkillers.
