LONDON — The average person is currently battling four ailments and health gripes – including back pain, headaches, and seasonal allergies, according to research. In fact, the poll of 2,000 British adults reveals that 82 percent have a minor health condition, with 59 percent of them in “significant” discomfort or pain.
More than a quarter of sufferers have had specific ailments for several years or more, with nearly one in 10 (8%) having been forced to cope for more than a decade! The impact is wide-ranging. Among those with health issues, 46 percent struggle to sleep, 28 percent have developed mental health conditions, and 18 percent can’t work.
The research, conducted by OnePoll and commissioned by Perrigo, shows that 7 in 10 sufferers try to adopt a “keep calm and carry on” mindset as a coping mechanism for their ailment.
Sadly, another 28 percent do so because they feel like their doctor doesn’t “seem interested.” A similar number — 27 percent — claim they can’t seem to get an appointment with their doctor, while 22 percent simply don’t like going. About half of respondents (52%) admit it’s never crossed their mind to visit a pharmacy for advice.
“Even minor issues and ailments can impact our quality of life and the way we want to live, when they really don’t have to,” suggests Farah Ali, superintendent pharmacist at London’s Warman-Freed, in a statement. “Don’t ignore your body by putting up with discomfort and suffering in silence. There are ways to manage conditions early through self-care so that problems don’t build up and disrupt everyday activity.”
The study also found a tendency to suffer in silence is very much a nationwide problem – 57 percent of everyone polled say they usually keep quiet when they develop health conditions. Yet 54 percent admit they are “better” at looking at other people’s health status than their own.
This approach appears to extend to self-care, as 56 percent agree this isn’t one of their strong points. Worse still, 43 percent don’t consider it to be a priority. However, the same percentage thinks they have improved at paying mind to self-care during the last two or three years. About 7 in 10 respondents claim to be “good” at listening to their body and understanding its needs.
When it comes to calling out sick, the research finds the typical adult has taken seven days off work during the past year. But this figure should perhaps be higher as three in five individuals say they’ve worked despite feeling too ill to do so. Why put themselves through such misery? The most common reason is that they just don’t like taking time off (37 percent). Others blame having “too much work to do” (31 percent), and not wanting to acknowledge they had a problem to begin with (20 percent).
“You must always seek the advice of a healthcare professional for any prolonged condition. Your community pharmacist is an accessible and great first point of call if you’re struggling to get an appointment with your doctor,” says Ali. “Pharmacists are experts in minor health conditions, able to provide self-care solutions. They can offer clinical advice and over-the-counter medicines for a range of minor illnesses. And they’ll [guide] you if you need to see a [doctor], nurse or other healthcare professional to treat your condition.”
72Point writer Rob Knight contributed to this report.
14% Can’t work? Or is that 14% won’t work…LOL!
Your time will come fish breath…LOL!
“You must always seek the advice of a healthcare professional for any prolonged condition. ”
You MUST? What’s this “must” stuff? If your experience is that doctors don’t help you, or make you sicker, because so many of them are just pill pushers or needle pushers anymore, and not problem solvers, what you really MUST do is solve your own problems, and find the holistic natural and nutritional solutions that make no money for big pharma, but help actually heal you. It’s a big movement out there. Find it. Going to doctor is a choice, not a “must”.
Exactly. My wife is 84. She has high blood pressure. Idiot doctor put her on the WORST blood pressure pill…she had a stroke from it!! We are STILL paying the price. It was the only medicine she had ever taken. WRONG decision.
I too had high blood pressure and my Dr put me on the usual meds which caused other problems and discomfort so I stopped them all. I used a variety of self researched/examined holist approaches and now blood pressure is normal. I have switched Drs as most are arrogant know it alls that want to prescribed some magic pills when there are better approaches
See a Chiropractor! Drugs are not the best solution for a structural problem. The are like using tape and plastic to fix a broken window; a temporary solution at best.
In the United States, the vast majority of the people I know wouldn’t even think of trying to see their primary care doctor for an acute illness. They know that by the time they get an appointment, they will either be well or dead. The article also discussed they high percentage of people that deal with chronic illness/pain. Pain control is in and has been in a dismal state in the U.S. Take peripheral neuropathy for example. There are NO EFFECTIVE treatments. for the 30,000,000 PN patients in America! The few drugs that are FDA approved for neuropathic pain are barely effective for most patients.
The medical world should unite in their quest for meaningful and effective pain control options.
Drs knowingly pushed the clot shot and still are evdn though the data clearly shows it is poisonous
Consider the great wildebeest migration: more than a million creatures, and when each has eventually perished not one of them will have died peacefully or free of discomfort. Life is a struggle, we all have ailments, and no one should be shocked or feel victimized by that reality.
Doctors as initial main venue to health is a bad, bad choice. Individually we have to seek out the best knowledge about diet and supplementation that we can find. Diet is asymmetrical in that avoiding the bad stuff gains us a lot and going for perfect benefits us only a little more so that part is not very demanding. Big Pharma seems to be fighting us for the rights to our natural stuff so there’s politics. My assumption that the Great Flood utterly messed up the food supply seems correct and that is a great starting point for learning about nutrition: Currently what’s available in nature is not an indicator of what we might actually need to thrive