Avoid self medication

Most of us take medicines ourselves when we suffer from problems like headache, cold, and others. We do this from hearing from a friend or from a book and perhaps due to laziness to consult a doctor. We often do this at our convenience without knowing the correct dosage, timing and the time gap between each dose or time to stop taking the medicine.  Some pills promise miracles like diabetes  reversal or weight loss which may  lead to few problems:-

1. Very dangerous. One may misdiagnose the illness and take the wrong medicine which could be fatal.
2. Insufficient dosage. Large dose may lead to the damage of liver, kidneys.
3. Drug interaction. some medicines will react adversely with the other medicine which can lead to death
4. Not suitable medicine. People react differently to medicines. Some people may be sensitive to some medicine or some may have allergy to some medicine.
5. Antibiotics. Powerful antibiotics are often taken over the counter (otc).  Two / three tablets may kill 90 percent of the germs. However, the remaining 10 percent will multiply and cause the symptoms to reccur. This will lead to increase anti-microbial resistance and therefore is less effective or ineffective in the long term.
6. Dependency.  Some medicines like sleeping pills,taken for a long time may lead to habituation and  dependency.
7. The type of medication and dosage may need to be changed over a period of time based on the patients response, effectiveness on the disease and side effects.
8. Over deposition of vitamins and minerals taken without prescription.
9. Better medicine. A doctor might have prescribed you a more effective medicine which might have cured you in a shorter time frame. By self medicating one may be actually delay ing the cure.

Self medication can prove costly, not only in terms of money but also in terms of your health.