On a sunny morning
I had been to my friend’s home to meet him. He is a graduate engineer. In his house I saw him sneezing, holding a
hand kerchief in his hands and all the time rubbing his nose with it. I saw his
eyes were red and swollen. He should
have been suffering from common cold I guessed. I asked him whether he had
taken any mild medicine for the cold. He said that he had been to a doctor and
the doctor had prescribed four tablets and one tonic. I asked him whether the
cold is very severe and is there for a more than three days. He said that the
trouble started only the previous day and he promptly consulted a senior doctor
after waiting in the queue for more than two hours. He also added that the doctor he consulted is
an MD and cure is guaranteed for those who go to him.
I was so eager to
see the medicines prescribed because normally I take an analgesic and antipyretic
like Paracetamol and may not require anything more to cure the common cold. I
have also heard that in developed countries doctors may not even prescribe this
but ask the patients to wait for a day or two and they will be alright.
He showed me his
medicine box that carried drugs for five days. There was an antibiotic, an
analgesic, a B-complex supplement and one more pill for peptic ulcer. The tonic
he referred was an expectorant (Cough syrup). My friend did not know which one
is an antibiotic and what is the expected action of the prescribed
medicines. I suggested that he should be
aware of the mechanism of treatment with these medicines. Obviously he ignored
my suggestion and went ahead to speak about other things continuing his noisy
reactions to the common cold.
Ethical doctors
will agree that an antibiotic is not required to treat the cold unless it has
become very severe and has developed into pneumonia. But many patients would under- estimate the
doctor if he is going to prescribe only paracetamol. Also the greedy doctors
have already convinced the public that ’more medicine, quick relief.’ We should
understand that unnecessarily consuming antibiotic and even vitamins is harmful
in the long run. The reason for high incidence of diabetes and hypertension
among Indian population could even be attributed to this culture of consuming
unnecessary medicines. But no medical school will get aid to do research in
this direction and only very few doctors have the guts to reveal the facts even
if they have evidences supporting this assumption.
There has been
great development in health care systems. Mostly the developments are in the
field of allopathic medical science. Marvelous equipments have been invented
and the uncertainty factor has been drastically reduced helping doctors to
choose the right treatments.
When someone is
ill the doctor prescribes medicines. In our country the doctors never explain
the mechanism of action of medicines they prescribe. Even if they try, most of
the patients do not want to listen to all these but want only quick results.
Due to this result- oriented approach many never mind taking combination of
numerous medicines. Some patients develop confidence on the doctors based on
the number of different types of drugs the doctor prescribes. However they don’t want to understand the
mechanism of each medicine that is being given.
Giving medicines
is technically defined as medical intervention.
We must be aware of action of each medicine on our body and mind.
Medicines that help to relieve pain are called
anti-inflammatory. Medicines that help to lower body temperature at times of fever
are called antipyretic. Medicines that kill
the disease causing organisms are called antibiotic. There are Vitamins and histamine
blockers. These medicines are commonly used for diseases and wounds. There are greater numbers of other types of
medicines that are prescribed to manage chronic deficiencies like diabetes and
hypertension. We cannot choose the
medicines that we should take in many severe instances but can understand the
mechanism of action of each medicine and keep monitoring the side effects. We
can also inform the doctor about the medicines taken in case of reoccurrence of
the ailment. Here no doctor except Homeopathy practitioners keep record of
patients and naturally no one will go and wait for several hours to get homeopathic
remedy for common cold or fever.
Each medicine has
an effect and side effect. For that matter whatever we eat, has effect and side
effect. Every medical intervention
generates an action and for every action there has to be a reaction. It is
meaningless if they say that Ayurvedic, Siddha and Homeopathy are free from
side effects. The side effect could be
different but it will be there.
If we understand
some of the basic fundamental about medicines, many times we can avoid taking them
unnecessarily. Medical intervention can do damages to our organs and let us
keep this damage as minimum as possible by becoming aware of the medicines we
take.
There are only
50 and odd pharmaceutical names that you may be required to remember under all
categories and believe me; it is not at all difficult. There could be hundreds
of brand names under which a particular medicine is sold. The weight in which
they are offered may vary. This you can find by reading the fine print on the foil
pack.
Say for
instance .
Paracetamol an analgesic is available in brand names like
Crocin, Metacin, Calpol, P-500 and
Dolo650.
Crocin,Metacin, Calpol and P-500 are
paracetamol 500mg and Dolo has the
medicine
weighing 650 mg.
Likewise you
will come to understand the pharmaceutical names and what really is prescribed
to you. The only challenge is to read the fine print on the aluminium foil but
you will get the skill to do it since this is concerning what you eat.
So let us not
be ignorant of what medicines we take. Since these days people are exploited
and where the government administration is very weak, we have to be extra
careful.
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