Why is self-medication necessary?

We can't leave our health up to others.
Japanese people's longevity has become number one in the world. In its background we can see, through the improvement in public hygiene and advancement in medical technology, namely tuberculosis and other highly contagious acute diseases have dramatically decreased.

On the other hand, the incidences of diseases like cancer, brain ischemia, and diabetes mellitus, which are considered chronic diseases, are on the rise. The so-called life-style diseases are on the increase. Many people are dying of cancer, and increasing number of people, are bedridden from brain ischemia or dementia. Because of this situation, the time in a person's life where they have no sickness or disease, in other words, to lengthen the time a person stays healthy has become a real issue.

To cure the life-style diseases, and leave your health solely up to a physician, namely, "Doctor centered health care", is not the real goal. The thing that each sick person should individually strive for is to bring them-self, back to a healthy condition. For each one of us to protect, keep, and improve our own health, self-medication becomes very necessary.


What is self-medication?
So, what do we mean when we say self-medication? Self-medication means to manage our health ourselves. For example, when our illness is light, to ease our symptom or prevent it from getting worse, we take our own responsibility in using OTC drugs to relieve or cure ourselves. Don't you have the experience of buying a drug at a pharmacy and curing your illness? That is called self-medication.

By being aware of staying healthy using our own means, we can enjoy our daily life. We can say that this is the real reason for self-medication. culled from http://www.jsmi.jp/english/handbook/b_01