Physician Warns Against Self-Medication

A consultant physician at the National Hospital, Abuja, Dr Oluwagbenga Ogunfowokan, has advised the public against taking drugs not prescribed by a doctor or risk Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR).

Dr Ogunfowokan explained  that many Nigerians formed the habit of abusing drugs which could have adverse effect in the liver and kidney later.

ADR refers to any harm associated with the use of given medications at a normal dose during normal use or taking overdose.

“Drugs are beneficial but can also be dangerous. They should not just take any drug or buy any drug that a well-qualified doctor has not prescribed otherwise they may not see the immediate danger.

“But some of those drugs may be destroying their kidney and liver and maybe after five, 10, 15 years that those serious damage would now manifest.

“Once the drug is not used as prescribed then the drug is being abused, and you can have toxicity of the drugs and a lot of side effects of the drugs.

“Even when a drug is prescribed and someone takes the drug as prescribed there are well-known side effects of some drugs.

“For people that abuse drugs, just buying them may be for pain or headache and they use them over a long time, they actually need to be sure that their doctors have recommended those drugs for them, otherwise it might be dangerous.”

Ogunfowokan said it was the duty of the doctor or pharmacist to find out from a patient if they were allergic to a particular drug before prescribing it.

He said that if a patient was not allergic to a drug, the doctor could prescribe such drug for the patient.

“If the person has no allergic reaction to the drug, the doctor and the pharmacists would have educated the patient that there are other side effects other people have experienced, which they should look out for.

“So if such side effects are well known there is no problem except the side effect is exaggerated.”

He, however, said that if a patient was taking a particular drug for the first time, it would be important for the doctor to educate him or her on its side effects.

“If a patient has never taken a drug before definitely the patient would not know whether he or she reacts to that drug.

“So what we say when you are taking  any drug, if you feel that your body is not accepting the drug you report to the doctor and the doctor will now make sure you do not have that type of drug again.

The doctor also advised pregnant women to ensure that they took only drugs prescribed by a doctor.

“Sometimes because somebody is pregnant you don’t know how the baby inside will respond to that drug so you want to make sure that the drug you are using and has been well tested and has been found to be very safe.

He said that some of the commonly abused drugs included paracetamol and caffeine.