Self medication is basically a human behavior in which a person consumes some exogenous substances (dietary supplement or drug) to cure physical ailment without the prescription of a physician.
We're seeing a lot of people taking a lot of medications at home. Let me give you an example, you'll find someone around you who at home is taking Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Iron, Zinc, Azithromycin, some people even adding Evamectin, Doxycycline, all manner of antibiotics and other drugs that are really not necessary and really do not change the outcome of COVID19.
The danger of this is that you expose yourself to side effects of medicines that are not even helping you. Most of the times people self medicate by using antibiotics that should target bacteria not viruses like the virus that causes COVID19. If too much or wrong antibiotics are used then with time bacteria in your body and in your environment begins to get resistant to commonly used antibiotics; which means in future, someone may come in with a pneumonia caused by a bacteria and doctors are not able to treat it because those bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics. So in using too much antibiotics we're actually harming ourselves and harming our future our children and other generations because they will not have antibiotics to use.
It's a very disturbing situation right now because people are using drugs that are not indicated and not prescribed by doctors and are not useful.
People are panicking all of a sudden and they're doing too much because they don't know about the dangers or they're just not aware much about drug's specificity. It's understandable that people will panic, at the same time for some reason, the wrong things seem to go viral. Like whenever someone has this odd prescriptions or picks from somewhere, everybody starts to follow it. You've seen on social media prescriptions that we're not sure where they came from but they have so many things listed there that are not useful for most of the people.
If you're not getting better, if you're developing symptoms it's always best to check in with the hospital or clinic closest to you as opposed to going over the counter to buy for yourselves antibiotics. Undoubtedly, the fear is real and it's understandable that people will be afraid but remember even in the fear let's not harm ourselves, let's not cause ourselves more harm than good. It's really important that we only take what will help us not what will harm us further.
Antibiotics are classified under category of medicines that should only be sold with a prescription. Unfortunately, in this country if you walk to a pharmacy or a chemist you'll be given antibiotics.
People even go and say give me two tablets of Amoxicillin or give me five tablets of Augmenting and they're able to get that. So clearly, there has to be a lot more enforcement of the regulation around sale of antibiotics so it's not just the people buying the antibiotics were wrong it's also those who are selling antibiotics over the counter without a prescription and the pharmacy and poisons board. There should be strict measures so that we protect ourselves as well as the future of antibiotics.
One of the things we should know especially in the context of hospitals is that, when we use too much antibiotics we have a lot of resistant bacteria within hospitals which means with time if you're admitted into a hospital for let's say you need surgery, you could very well get infected with a bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics. Eventually, we also end up making hospitals a dangerous place to be. So both in the community let us reduce use of antibiotics, let us not buy antibiotics over the counter without a prescription and for healthcare workers within hospitals we really only have to use prescribed antibiotics where they're necessary.
We have to realize that when there's so many people who are sick particularly in times of pandemic such as COVID19, it's very difficult for the state to keep track of everybody so some things fall through the cracks, but if someone is at home it really depends on what symptoms they have.
Most people are asymptomatic they do not have any symptoms. So if you do not have symptoms you do not need to take any medication. Most people do well, they do not develop symptoms and recover without any issues. If you have mild symptoms so someone may have a mild sore throat or a running nose then that's a situation where you could take something to relieve the symptoms. You can take some salty water or some honey that would relieve some of the sore throat. If you have congestion then you may take some antihistamines.
Remember there are certain categories of people who may be at a little higher risk for developing certain complications. Like people who are much older or who have certain conditions like diabetes or heart disease, it's always important that they check in with their doctors so that they have a review and their doctor will tell them whether it's safe to isolate at home or whether they need to go into hospital.
If someone is at home and they get worsening of symptoms for example, if you had a cough and this cough is getting worse or you're getting chest pain or you're having some difficulty in breathing, then do not stay at home taking antibiotics, present yourself to a hospital so that you can get a proper prescribed treatment.
Useful information, keep updating..!
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