Self Medicating

I'm really not sure why the term "self-medicate" is used so negatively.  I realize it's associated with addiction problems, but there are a number of people addicted to prescriptions that are written for them, so why the derogatory inference?  I self-medicate.  I use legal substances, but I do self-medicate and I'm not ashamed of that.

I have herbal tinctures, topical analgesics, salves, oils, wine, and a couple of recipes containing alcohol, 1 for colds and 1 for pain.  I don't use anything regularly, except red wine in the evening.  Everything else is used temporarily for a specific injury or problem.

When I left "medicine" and no I wasn't a practitioner, I was a patient, a.k.a. guinea pig.  Keep in mind, there is a lot of legislation in place to protect animals from laboratory tests.  Not to mention, everything the FDA recalls or bans, it at one time approved.  I understand there are class action lawsuits all the time over medication side effects.  Yet I digress . . . When I left mainstream medical care, most people with my diagnosis were on at least 8 prescriptions.  My last hospital stay, I was sent home with 13 prescriptions, and while four of them were acute medications, for the exacerbation; the rest were intended to be maintenance meds.

I realized then, I was at a cross roads, even if it wasn't a spiritual conviction!  There is no cure for the disease I have and there was no functioning on that many medications!  That's no life!   Self-medicating is so much more manageable and the side effects are virtually non-existent.  I will admit, however; enough alcohol to try kill the pain in my broken arm did leave me feeling a bit impaired, which is why I came up with CHINICREEN, a topical analgesic for pain that was bad to the bone . . . that was breaking through my skin.  I don't want to go through life impaired, just comfortable when possible!

Since I don't medicate regularly, it doesn't take much in the way of natural remedies to positively affect my situation.  I admit, that my legs don't work as well as they used to and MS spasms are miserable, so at the end of day, a couple of glasses of red wine do ease the spasms and I can continue working.  I work at home, so driving is a non-issue.  Our Creator gave each of us a body for which we are responsible.  More addiction problems stem from chemical dependency than natural remedies.  When considering the origin of the term self-medicating, it becomes self-explanatory.   Perhaps it's time to take a different look at self-medicating, and consider when addiction is a psychiatric diagnosis of it's own, self-medicating may actually be the responsible choice.