Self-medication: A Silent Menace

How did we get here, that it actually became a normal thing for one to self-prescribe drugs for oneself? Was it by instinct or what? No, I believe one good reason is that we kind of inherited the habit from those who were over us while growing, and even while grown. But I think, a point and time like this should call for a rehabilitation of such habit. This because of the impending disaster it holds.

You know, it's an easy and faster, cheaper and quicker way to solve our health issues when we can just storm into any pharmacy or roadside drugs store and obtain the needed drugs that we "know" is the way out of our health concerns at the moment. It baffles me how much we tend to know about medications when we are far from the profession. I do wonder, 'how do they just know it?" I came to realise that, through the words of one neighbour to another, parent to child, a long history of some drugs use, it was this confident knowledge that yielded the self-medication attitude that has now become prevalent amongst many.

Where I come from, and many parts of the world I believe, drug abuse tends to be a normal thing. Now, it doesn't mean taking the drugs to be lost in another world of ourselves. When a drug is taken without the proper directive of a professional, that's an abuse of drugs. So yeah, many of us became defaulters in this sense.

I've had my share of troubles with the issue of self-medication. I'm not one that's quick to take drugs at the slightest nudge of a health disorder. I don't really like the smell of drugs. So, my experience seems kind of light for this very reason. Something in me always had a keen concern when it comes to drugs. I often wonder, what if some side effects turnout this way or that way, and only leaves me at the end to bear the burden.

Nevertheless, I wasn't free of self-medication. I can recall one of the most terrible health issues I had. And this has an element of self-medication to blame. I was actually sharing it with a friend recently.

It was my days in school. I fell sick and yeah, I know what to just do; take the right drugs for it. Some medical consultant I was, huh. After some hesitation, I went straight up to a little medicine store and got me some good antimalaria drugs. It can only be malaria - that's one of the first diagnosis we make when we fall sick. Got the drugs, went home and took them – in all confidence.

Yes, I got okay after swallowing some for some days. Up and running again. About two weeks later, I fell sick again I still took same actions as before. Yeah, it worked again and I was okay. Not until after about two weeks when I'm back under the weather the weather that I decided to seek the examination of a medical professional. The doctor at the school clinic took note of my state and agreed that I take a test. That didn't happen for some reasons.

After some days later, I came around with all intentions to take that test. The doctor I met was different from the other. He disagreed on me taking a test and asked that I take the prescriptions he made to the pharmacy, get some malaria drugs – yeah, and then take and see. I was hesitant. I went ahead to plead with a nurse for a test. It was agreed. I took the test and when the result came, guess what? It was typhoid that was the issue all along.

That certainly taught me a lesson about self-medication, and also insistence when it comes to my health. Self-medication shouldn’t be an option talk more of a habit for us. Its impending effects are silent, yet potent.

^{Images are AI generated}

Thank you for reading!