self-medication

[self-med-i-key-shuhn]

noun

1. the use of medicine without medical supervision to treat one's own ailment.

Example Sentences

And it made an important distinction, one that helped explain why so many unhoused people had serious drug and alcohol problems: “For many individuals with major mental illness … alcohol and drug use may reflect self-medication — a specific attempt to alleviate troublesome symptoms or a more general coping strategy for dealing with a harsh existence.”

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Only now is Congress recognizing that its various efforts over the past 100 years to give the executive some tariff authority here, some tariff authority there, ends up with the president getting all the authority he needs to create a situation where a nearly 80-year-old with vast untreated issues might abuse the power as a form of self-medication.

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But the need is great, complicated by the street drugs some people use for self-medication, and progress is often stymied by multiple forces despite billions of dollars worth of investments in solutions.

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This includes reducing infections through better water, sanitation and hygiene, improving vaccine uptake, strengthening hospital infection control policies, educating physicians and deterring self-medication by patients.

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Even though there is evidence of certain self-medication behaviors in animals, so far it has never been known that animals treat their wounds with healing plants.

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