I grew up in a home where self-medication was a normal thing. My mum always had paracetamol and other pain relievers at home. Anytime my siblings or I complained of body pains or fever, she would simply tell us to take paracetamol and rest. And to be fair, sometimes it worked—we would feel better after a while. But looking back now, I realize that just because we felt fine afterward didn’t mean the problem was actually solved.
One of the biggest dangers of self-medicating is that it can delay proper diagnosis. Imagine someone who has typhoid but keeps taking malaria drugs because they assume it’s just a normal fever. The typhoid keeps getting worse, and by the time they finally decide to see a doctor, it has already become a serious issue that requires expensive treatment . It might even become life-threatening. Many people have actually lost their lives because they kept treating the wrong illness instead of finding out what was actually wrong with them.
My Experience with Self-Medication
I’ve always been someone who doesn’t like taking drugs. In fact, I try to avoid hospitals as much as possible because I know that once I get there, I’ll be given a long list of medications to take in the morning, afternoon, and night. I don’t like that at all, so whenever I feel sick, I try to manage it myself first. But one particular experience changed my mindset about self-medication completely.
It happened when I was in secondary school. One day, I started feeling a severe headache. It wasn’t the normal kind of headache that comes and goes—it was intense. But instead of going to the school clinic, I decided to do what I usually did. I asked one of my friends for paracetamol and took it, thinking that would solve the problem.
At first, I thought I was getting better, but a few hours later, the headache came back, this time worse than before. I started feeling feverish, and before I knew it, my body temperature was rising. Still, I didn’t think it was serious enough to visit the hospital. I just kept taking paracetamol, hoping it would go away.
By the next two days, my condition had worsened. I was running a high fever, sweating uncontrollably, and feeling extremely weak. I could barely move from my bed. The worst part was that, it was during my exams, and I knew that if I didn’t get better soon, I would miss some of them.
Later on, the school called my mum about my condition. Without wasting time, my mum came to school immediately and took me to the hospital. By then, I was so weak that I couldn’t even walk properly. When we got to the hospital, the doctor took my temperature and immediately placed me on a drip. He told my mum that my body temperature was already at 40°C, which was extremely dangerous. He said if I had waited any longer, my condition could have become life-threatening.
Lying on that hospital bed, I felt completely helpless. I wasn’t myself at all. My body was burning, and I could barely focus on anything happening around me. At that moment, all I could think about was how I had ignored the signs my body was giving me. Instead of getting proper treatment earlier, I had wasted time taking random drugs that didn’t work.
After some days of receiving proper treatment, I finally started feeling better. The doctor discharged me, and my mum took me back to school. But by then I had already missed two of my exams so I had to start reading all over again to write my exams separately from other students. That alone was another stressful experience, but at least I had recovered.
That experience taught me a hard lesson: self-medication is dangerous, and ignoring serious health symptoms can have serious consequences. Just because a drug worked in the past doesn’t mean it will always be the right solution. Our bodies are different, and illnesses don’t always present themselves in the same way.
Since that day, I have become more cautious about my health. Whenever I feel unwell, I no longer assume that I know what’s wrong. Instead of self-medicating, I go to a doctor or visit the clinic to get a proper diagnosis. The truth is, no matter how much we try to avoid hospitals, nothing is more important than our health. Because at the end of the day, a few hours at the hospital can save us from something that could become far worse in the future.
So if you ever feel sick, please don’t just take random drugs and hope for the best. Go to a doctor or a nurse and get checked. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Posted Using INLEO