There is no accurate definition of self-medication but it can simply be stated as the use and misuse of drugs without doctor’s prescription. For the purpose of lay readers, I’ll try to simplify this short article.
There are certain illnesses that people usually assume they can easily carry out self-medication upon, for instance, malaria, cough, and amnesia to mention but few. Medicines for these categories of illness are often referred to as over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Examples include antibiotics, anti-malaria codeine-based analgesic, sedative antihistamines, decongestants, laxatives and cough products.
Now the dangers involved in the use these drugs are either psychological or physiological, both are with serious impact. Clinically speaking, some drug users don’t know about certain underlying factors to be considered before taking drugs so they go ahead and apply these medications and because it probably worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work with everyone. One important danger of self-medication is the complication arising from the use of certain drugs that are capable of inducing allergies which often time may lead to death example is sulphonamide drugs which are known for toxicity and severe allergies and side effects.
Drug allergy is the abnormal reaction of the immune system to a medication
The effect when drugs are taken without information on the dosage can also lead to addiction. For instance, in the case of opiate e.g codeine, addiction is usually common to users of such drugs.
Lastly, one major effect of self-medication is the development of resistance by bacteria. Now, this is one of the current major global problems. Bacteria develop resistance easily by selective pressure
Antibiotic selective pressure is a process whereby the use of antibiotic destroys and kills antibiotic-susceptible bacteria thereby allowing antibiotic-resistant ones to survive and multiply
Selective pressure is a serious cause of antibiotic resistance because, in terms of self-medication, the user does not know the concentration of antibiotics to be taken. If the quantity taken is below or above the therapeutic level, there is bound to be resistance by the bacteria or the danger of cell toxicity which can be a very serious health concern
Resources
Mayoclinic
Emerald
NCBI
Mattoo et al