Self Medication; Delay is Dangerous

Time is of the essence in matters of health. A seemingly small delay in seeking professional medical care can be the difference between life and death or the difference between good health and disability. Which is why people are advised to not waste time before taking a sick person to the hospital.

A few years ago, I was very sick but the sickness came with the common symptoms of fever, headache and malaise. My people assumed it was malaria as it is the common disease in our environment and one would always get the malaria infection every once in a while.

We began treatment at home and we treated malaria for almost a week and I was not getting better. It was not until I collapsed at home that I was rushed to the hospital. On getting there, after series of questions and tests, I was diagnosed to have a Gastrointestinal bleeding. Imagine the gap from malaria to gastrointestinal bleeding.

Looking back at it, I know that regardless of the quantity or quality of malaria medications I ingested, I would not have gotten better. This is simply because malaria drugs are not meant for my condition and would not be able to solve it.

This is a very common issue with self medication. The disease you are taking drugs for would most likely not be what is going on with you. The drugs would just be a waste of time, money and a burden to the body system.

There are some symptoms which are common to a wide range of diseases and making diagnosis and commencing treatment just based on these symptoms would almost always not yield good results. These symptoms include fever, headache, malaise, cough, weight loss, etc. Many diseases present with these symptoms which makes it very easy to misdiagnose and mistreat especially during self medication.

That is why it is advisable to always go to a professional when symptoms arrive or worst case scenario, 3 days after self medication did not improve the symptoms.

In my case, I arrived the hospital very pale having lost a lot of blood from the internal bleeding. I needed urgent blood transfusion and I went on to receive many pints of blood during that hospital admission.

I got better after about two weeks in the hospital following aggressive treatment and I learnt my lesson about self medication from that occasion.

All images are mine

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