Our bodies handle infectious diseases in a couple different
ways; there are adaptive responses, such as coughing, sneezing, vomiting, and
diarrhea, and immune responses. Whether it is because adaptive responses are
associated with sickness or because they are just really unpleasant, there
seems to be a negative perception of them.
It isn’t really uncommon then to want to treat the
uncomfortable symptoms that accompany infectious disease. But in fact,
suppressing the adaptive responses your body has can have harmful repercussions
as far as overcoming the infection goes. Our bodies have adapted these
reactions to rid itself of the pathogens. Responses like vomiting or coughing
are the body’s means of physically flushing or expelling as much of the
pathogen as possible.
So why do we generally act to treat these symptoms through
suppression if this causes the body to house more of the pathogen and work harder
to destroy it?
In many cases, these symptoms are thought of as part of the
pathogen and not the body’s protective response to it. Pharmaceutical companies
that fund the clinical treatment of these adaptive responses are unlikely to
support the idea that simply resting and recuperating may be best to allow the
body to fight the sickness.
Why should we have to suffer pain if we have the option not
to? Chapter 8 of Medical Anthropology introduces the concept of a high ‘pain
intolerance’ in the U.S. because of the option to treat adaptive responses.
Along with this idea, if patients seek medical advice and what they get is
recommendation to do nothing but take it easy, rest and recuperate, they may
see that their money was poorly spent at the doctor’s office. Perhaps this
could be remedied by the same advice with suggestions to take needed supplements
afterwards to fortify bodily systems that were drained from the sickness?
People are expected to continue on with life even in the
face of sickness. Our busy schedules don’t allow extraneous time to be sick, so
naturally quick fixes of the symptoms of pathogens are widely sought after. But
is this best for our health? And wouldn’t the medical community, entrusted with
the responsibility to endorse health, have an obligation to direct us in the
healthiest option, not just give us a drug to mask the symptoms?
At the same time, it may be a public health concern to not
treat the symptoms if individuals are still going to participate in their
social obligations. Coughing, sneezing, diahhrea are all the body’s way to
expelling infection, therefore increasing its presence to the rest of a
population and increasing other people’s susceptibility to it.
Hi Paige, nice post!
ReplyDeleteAbout harmful repercussions of suppressing the body’s adaptive responses, I agree – getting used to certain infections is the essence of building immunity. In my opinion, the medical community usually directs us towards the healthiest option, but patients want medication because, as you said, they don’t have time to be sick – or they don’t believe natural remedies will be effective. I think of this in relation to other cultures that primarily use natural and herbal remedies for sickness; it is how medication worked before industrialization. Additionally, I agree that pharmaceutical companies are unlikely to support idea of natural rest as cure. Like we’ve learned with some other aspects of health (thinking of diet), industrialization is not 100% beneficial for it.
As far as symptom suppression through pharmaceuticals, it is also easier for those patients to just take a second to take the pills and think that it will cure them as they continue about their daily lives. In my experience, medical professions offer both as options, along with general expert advice and direction, but ultimately it is up to whoever is sick to use these given options to cure themselves. Furthermore, these medication recipients may take given medication until symptoms are gone but not until the prescribed amount is finished – I say this because I know I’m one of them.