Welcome to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learners' featured post. Many individuals have always indulged in unhealthy practices like self-medication since time immemorial, but lately, with the hike in the price of goods and services, the number of people who indulge in these unhealthy practices has skyrocketed, as many can no longer afford to pay for the service and attention of professionals and are now forced to do it themselves. I have seen many moms declare themselves nurses of the house with no single knowledge about medicine; you see them giving kids pills upon pills, and they do it confidently.
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I did not get to experience something like that as my mom was a professional and practicing nurse before she quit, so when she prescribed drugs for us, she did it out of experience and because she has an idea of what medicine is required for every illness and not just guessing. Some moms prescribe drugs blindly, with no single knowledge, but you see them forcing a child to take the medication. Welcome to Nigeria and my neighborhood, particularly where paracetamol is a drug for everything. A child complains about eye pain, and you hear another suggesting they take paracetamol.
As much as self-medication can come in handy sometimes, it is not medically advised for anyone to practice it. Before we swallow any pill or take any medication, it is best if this medication was prescribed by a professional. Self-medication is more dangerous than we make it look or sound. Even when we inevitably practice self-medication, we should not settle for it. Always seek advice from a professional and regular checkup can help reduce the hazards of self-medication.
Every day I keep saying that technology has its pros and cons, but a lot of people are capitalizing on the cons of technology instead of its pros. About two years ago, a woman trended in my neighborhood for her recklessness and carelessness towards her child, thanks to self-medication, technology, and the knowledge she claims to have gotten from serving as an apprentice at a chemist before she got married. Her child is a sickle cell patient, but instead of taking her child for a regular checkup as it is required of her, she locked the child up in the house and was using Google, YouTube and her acclaimed knowledge to administer medications to the little girl. It went on for weeks before the little girl was saved.
I can't say what really inspired it or if something came over her, but she was using the little girl like a lab rat; whatever she researches on YouTube, she will practicalize on the innocent girl, and when asked about the girl, she tells people she went to spend time at her uncle's place, but that girl has been inside the house all along, and when she realized things had gotten out of hand and the little girl was on the verge of death, she decided to open and call out for help.
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Everybody who rushed in to help was surprised to see the little girl all pale and looking malnourished. Till today, no one knows her reason for choosing that type of medication for her daughter; luckily, the girl managed to survive. Having little knowledge about self-medication can come in handy sometimes, but settling completely for it, even when we see things getting worse, is really not a good option. Continuous self-medication can cause death or even harm to health, which is why we need to seek the attention of professionals every once in a while.
