The Perils of Self-Medicating: My Concern for a Friend’s Health.

It is impossible to communicate with a friend because she constantly coughs, speaks through her nose, or complains that something hurts her. She does this not to be pitied.

The thing is that a friend basically does not go to the doctors. I did not understand what it was connected with, either because of the peculiarities of upbringing, or there was some kind of negative experience.

But the fact remains. A friend is constantly self-medicating. Some poultices, infusions, the application of salt are combined with the use of handfuls of tablets.

And from what she is being treated – who would know. She diagnoses herself on the Internet, and then actively tries to cure her, relying on her experience and advice from the Internet.

At the same time, a friend never recovers, she walks forever sniffing, coughing, then one thing hurts, then another. But she doesn’t go to the doctor. He doesn’t even go to examinations.

When in the twentieth year she came down with signs of SARS, I almost obscenely forced her to call a doctor. What if it’s not SARS, but something worse.

But she ignored me, saying that she was already much better. We don’t know what she had then, but from her cough, which then persisted for a very long time, and shortness of breath, different thoughts crept in.

And she didn’t even go to a fluorography then to check the condition of her lungs. She said that she felt fine, but did not want to be irradiated once again.

In my memory, she only went to the doctor once – it was a dentist. And then she dragged on to the very end. At first, the tooth simply ached, then it hurt wildly, and then inflammation began.

She rinsed with vodka, and chamomile, and ate handfuls of painkillers. As a result, I took her to the doctor already in a state of semi-consciousness from pain.

The sight was terrible. Her temperature rose a lot, her cheek was swollen just before our eyes, even her eyes froze. She couldn’t really talk.

Although, probably, if she were in a more sane state, I simply would not have persuaded her to see a doctor. She may not have agreed then, but she was in no position to resist.

But it was my only victory. And although everything went well that time, the doctors corrected this whole nightmare, the friend did not imbue them with confidence.

Now a wave of seasonal diseases has begun, a friend catches them one after another, apparently, because she constantly talks through her nose, coughs, complains of temperature and malaise.

Although this is strange, she should have already developed immunity to such diseases, but, apparently, something is wrong in the body, since the sores stick one by one.

But to find out, you need to go to the hospital, take tests, communicate with doctors, which a friend does not do. And how it will come back to haunt, no one knows.

She has a small son, whom she also does not take to the doctors, but there is a sane father there, who, in which case, takes the child to be ill and calls the doctor.

Apparently, he pinched his girlfriend with something, because she is not even indignant that the child is being taken to the hospital and so on. Although her ex is still a cattle depot, but in this case I respect him directly.

And scary for my friend. I’m afraid that someday she will bring herself to such a disregard for herself, and no one will be able to help.

An adult educated woman, but behaves like a dense medieval peasant woman.

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