How can self-medication hurt you?

We all self-medicate sometimes. For example, if we take a pill for a headache, we smear a bruise with an anti-inflammatory gel, rinse and bury our nose during a runny nose. And it's even good. Imagine what would happen if every time we went to the clinic and sat in line to drink paracetamol.

Self-treatment is well known to chronic patients. For example, endocrinologists teach people with diabetes in special schools how to correctly calculate the dose and inject themselves with insulin. And dermatologists explain to parents what to do if atopic dermatitis worsens in a child. As a result, people are more attentive to the symptoms of the disease, learn to notice them and alleviate them.

To regulate self-medication, drugs are divided into prescription and over-the-counter drugs. But this is a conditional division. Because, on the one hand, many prescription drugs are easily dispensed in pharmacies, and on the other hand, you can harm yourself with an over-the-counter drug. For example, paracetamol is potentially harmful to the liver and sometimes

causes her damage.

In general, self-treatment must be approached wisely, then it will be beneficial.

When you can't self-medicate

You should not self-medicate if there are signs of a life-threatening condition, suspicious symptoms, or you have tried self-treatment, but the condition does not improve. This can be:

• symptoms of a heart attack, such as chest pain, shortness of breath, and dizziness;
• Stroke-like signs such as sudden muscle weakness, paralysis, abnormal sensation or loss of sensation one side of the body, difficulty speaking, confusion, vision problems, dizziness, loss of balance, and coordination;
• labored breathing;
• heavy bleeding;
• open burns, charring, or blistering of the skin;
• burns caused by inhalation;
• burns that cover a large area or are on the arms, face, legs, or genitals;
• serious injury (for example, in a car accident);
• poisoning;
• severe allergic reaction;
• signs of shock such as dizziness, confusion, and cold, clammy skin
• sudden severe pain anywhere;
• vomiting blood or coughing up a relatively large amount of blood (more than a few streaks in the sputum);
• sudden severe worsening of a chronic disease such as asthma or diabetes;
• unexplained weight loss;
• persistent or very severe fever;
• dyspnea;
• work changes intestines (constipation, diarrhea);
• confusion;
• loss of appetite or rapid satiety with small amounts of food;
• flashes of light before the eyes.

And of course, you need to see a doctor, and not go to Google if you have any new, unusual symptoms for you.

What is the danger of self-medication

Even reputable medical sources on the Internet cannot replace the medical education and experience of medical practitioners. It's easy for the average person harm self-medication.

You can misdiagnose the problem

Most diseases have general non-specific symptoms. For example, even a neurologist cannot immediately say why a patient has headacheuntil you have questioned and researched. And another burning sensation in the chest May be not the usual heartburn after overeating, but the first symptom of the onset heart attack.

You can waste time

In many diseases, the enemy of man becomes time: the longer a person tries to cope with unpleasant symptoms on his own, and the disease progresses, the less chance of recovery and return to normal life. The most obvious example is malignant tumors. But the problems are not only with them.

Can mask a serious illness

If you deal with non-specific symptoms, you may not notice the deterioration. For example, pain medication for an aching tooth can distract from the symptoms of an abscess formation until the situation gets to the point where the medications no longer work.

Thirteen-year-old Lilya from St. Petersburg was treated by her parents for a month for a cold, until she coughed up a blood clot during inhalation. It turned outthat the problem is not SARS, but a lung tumor the size of a tennis ball. Fortunately, the story ended happily.

You can choose the wrong drugs

Sometimes people give themselves the correct diagnosis, but prescribe the wrong therapy. For example, they start drinking antibiotics with a viral infection. You can’t do this, because these drugs have no effect on viruses, but they can cause side effects and stop working in the future.

Well, or people right determine have angina and treat her validol - menthol tablets with valerian. It is clear that he does not will not help in this situation, unlike nitrates.

May experience rare, dangerous side effects

Every drug has a long list of side effects. common usually include harmless nausea, dizziness, and rare ones are very severe. For example, the antipsychotic drug clozapine may cause agranulocytosis, that is, a sharp decrease in the number of neutrophils (blood cells that fight infections). This complication develops in 1% of patients, but nonetheless. It is impossible to predict such reactions, but doctors know about them and monitor the patient. In the case of agranulocytosis, regular tests are prescribed. If a person begins to take the medicine himself, then he puts himself in danger.

One of the worst reactions called fulminant or fulminant hepatitis. Then a lot of hepatocytes die at the same time, the liver can no longer cope with its work, acute liver failure begins, which ends in organ transplantation or death. So died Russian after taking supplements from the marketplace.

You can make mistakes with dosage, contraindications and drug interactions

Even if you carefully read the instructions, it is easy to make a mistake with the selection of the drug and its dose. If you take not enough, there will be no effect, and if you take a lot, there may be an overdose.

In addition, some drugs may to interact with each other and with food. For example, cholesterol-lowering statins and grapefruit juice can cause dangerous muscle damage called rhabdomyolysis.

It is possible to take the medicine incorrectly

This episode from the series "Doctor House" is shown, probably, to all students of medical universities. It seems like a surreal situation, but no.

Often the townsfolk do not understand how the drug can be used, and how not. At best, there will be no effect, and at worst, complications will develop. For example, potassium chloride ampoules can be tried to be injected intramuscularly, and this will cause tissue necrosis, because the solution can only be injected into a vein.

You can make a mistake with the storage conditions

Most medicines can be stored in opened packages in the first aid kit, and nothing will happen to them. But there are also those that can deteriorate due to the wrong temperature, the action of light, or the penetration of microbes. It is difficult to say how they will affect the body: the effect will weaken and it will be missed, or the medicine will become poisonous to humans.

So It happened with Anna Kolyada and her boyfriend. Anna was a fifth-year medical student and prescribed herself a placental drug "to strengthen immunity." As a result, the couple ended up in intensive care, the man survived, and the girl died. The main cause is considered sepsis, or blood poisoning. The opened ampoule was kept at room temperature for several days, during which time bacteria got inside, which caused shock and multiple organ failure.

May be addicted

Some drugs, such as benzodiazepines, phenobarbital, ethyl alcohol and others cause addiction. That is, a person cannot live without them, constantly increases doses, and if it is impossible to take, he suffers from withdrawal symptoms.

Addiction May be and over-the-counter drugs. Most often, it occurs from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs based on analgin (especially in combination with caffeine), ibuprofen or naproxen, and sedatives and insomnia medications, especially those containing phenobarbital. Abuse is said to be if a person takes more than 2 painkillers or sedatives per week or more than 8 per month. It is manifested by severe headaches.