Self-medication is very common in all parts of the world. With medical advice costing a bomb and with over-the-counter (OTC) products every ready to oblige, a number of people push their luck by treating themselves. After all, if anything untoward happens, there is always a doctor or hospital to go to.

Although this attitude is very wallet-friendly, it may not be the same health-wise. If a person doesn’t have the money to spend on a private healthcare setup, it makes more sense to look out for medical help at subsidized rates from organizations run by charitable trusts rather than try out stunts alone.

While everybody knows the benefits of a particular drug, no one really knows the side-effects that can be caused by it, its contra-indications, or interactions with other medicines and food items. Above all, a non-medico may not be in a position to diagnose his or her disease condition and would quite logically only attempt to relieve the distressing symptom, masking the manifestations of the disease in the bargain.

There was a man who was suffering from cough and fever. He assumed that he was suffering from flu and took some OTC product containing caffeine, an antihistaminic, and a painkiller or anti-inflammatory drug in it. This medicine certainly brought down his fever and made him comfortable for a few hours but the underlying pathology continued to progress silently.

It was only after he suddenly developed breathlessness and was hospitalized that he realized that he had pneumonia and his delay in starting off with the appropriate form of treatment had complicated matters and even threatened his life. He was put on a ventilator in an intensive care unit. In his attempt to save a few bucks, he landed up paying in thousands, much to his dismay.

The moral of the story is that self-medication is dangerous. Any symptom can develop as a result of various causations – infective, inflammatory, or toxic. Only a doctor will be in a position to diagnose a condition correctly after examining the patient and getting some investigations done. Health is wealth and therefore trying to hoard wealth at the cost of health isn’t a very good idea!

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Tags: Anti Inflammatory, Caffeine, Contra-indications, Dangerous, Disease, Health, Interactions, OTC, Over-the-counter, Painkiller, Self-medication, Side-effects

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