Self medication

Disclaimer: This is written from my point of view. The content in this article may or may not be true as it was written from my knowledge however vast or limited it may be. Nevertheless, do note that I'm not a doctor or a pharmacist - I'm a biology student. That's it.

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Seriously, it only has disadvantages... ... well, okay you might say it has one, only ONE, advantage that is it saves medical cost lol... but once you've heard the disadvantages, you might just think twice about self-medicating... it's just not worth it!

First of all, let me give you an example. (I'm writing this from what I've learned about how infection occurs and the body's response to an infection as well as from my belief - I may be wrong though)

The common cold is one of the most common illness that a person can get. The stages of this sickness usually includes fever, cough and runny nose.

Fever,

When you have a fever, you take a paracetamol (or Panadol, though there are many other brands) pill to reduce the temperature rise in your body. However, do you understand why your body temperature rises in the first place? My dear readers, it is to combat the illness itself. How? Well, if the illness is caused by bacteria, the rise in body temperature will create an unfavourable condition for the bacteria to grow in.... in other words, the bacteria cannot grow anymore and will die off. But ofc your own cells will be affected but it's an acceptable loss.

When you forcefully reduce the temperature in your body, bear in mind that it is the body's defense mechanism which you are trying to turn off. The only times where you have to take a Panadol pill is when the infection is not bacterial (but is viral) OR when the increase in body temperature became uncontrollable (for example, 40C is too high. Note that an average person's body temp is supposed to be around 37C and a rise of 3C is A LOT).

Unless you couple the paracetamol with another medicine (antibiotics/antiviral drug, which is categorised under 'prescripted medicines') which actually does the job of killing off the infection, you are not doing yourself any good by suppressing the fever without doing anything about the actual infection because in the end, you did not 'recover' from the sickness, it is still in you!

and what if that mere 'common cold' is not a common cold? ...!!!...

Though, if you decided to suffer through the fever at home without taking any medicine, it's a bit risky - unless you're sure it's not something serious (people can die from fever in the old times, you know!~) - but I guess it should be fine. This way, you're not lending any help to your body and letting (and fully trusting) your body to heal itself from the infection. 

For cough and runny nose,

The usual medicines that you get over the counter at the local pharmacy basically does the trick but bear in mind that when you're getting a cough syrup for your cough, make sure to tell the pharmacist details of your cough. For example, with phlegm and without phlegm (dry cough) type of coughing, have sore throat or not, how long you have been coughing, etc. If there is blood in your cough, then going to the local pharmacy will not do (though if you're there for consultation, I guess you can, but the pharmacist will probably advise you to go to a doctor anyways) - you have to go to the hospital to find out what's wrong. It may indicate a deeper problem and such problems will just worsen if you keep delaying that visit to the doctor's.

For runny nose, usually you'll need a doctor's note to get the medicine here in Malaysia (not sure about other places though). So it won't be too much of a problem. 

Okay, that's it I guess. Till next time!~