Nigerians have been advised to desist from the practice of self-medication due to the adverse effect of medicines on the liver and kidney.
According to the Pan African Medical Journal, the prevalence of self-medication ranges between 60 to 90 percent as revealed by several researches in Nigeria.
The journal attributed the high rate of self-medication in Nigeria to uncontrolled access to drugs, the doctor patients ratio, which is about 1 to 6,000 and poverty.
The Director General of the Cross River Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Janet Ekpenyong during a chat with some journalists in Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, south-south Nigeria, warned about the health implications of self-medication.
Dr. Ekpenyong said that despite several warnings through the media, people have rather continued to self-medicate, which is also seen as drug abuse.
Ekpenyong stated, “The dangers of self-medication are really enormous. We have constantly advised people to stop taking drugs without a doctor’s prescription that such action is really dangerous.
“We usually insist that any person, who is sick, must go to the hospital or clinic for proper examination and diagnosis by a doctor, who will then give prescription based on the result of the test conducted. People do not know that self-medication is drug abuse,” she said.
NSAID drugs
The Director General noted that the most one worrisome and frequently abused medication, which has been identified to be toxic for liver and kidney even amongst infants, was the use of Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug also known as NSAID drugs.
She said that the rate which people abuse NSAID like paracetamol was alarming, explaining that taking any medicine without a doctor’s prescription could result in drug resistance, addiction, stomach ulcer, kidney stones and liver damages including devastating effect on the nervous system.
She said, “For instance, people who self-medicate do not know the dosage to take. The dosage for any medicine is prescribed according to the weight of a person. Then on the tablet or sachet or package, it is even prescribed including the number of tablets to be taken. So people who self-medicate may take less than the required dosage.
“It is particularly common with people, who take NSAIDS (Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) like paracetamol. Whenever we recommend paracetamol, we do not recommend it to be taken beyond three days because it has a lot of damaging effect. It can cause ulcer, NSAID is one of the major causes of ulcer.
“Then apart from that it causes Kidney failure and liver damage. Most of the drug metabolism takes place in the liver and continued self-medication is harmful to the liver, even the nerves. People do not realize that drugs are made up of chemicals, which is being introduced into the body.
“This is why we recommend that a professional must prescribe the medicine because self-medicating can cause other effect in the body even mortality.”
