Curing the Cause, not Masking the Symptom

I can't help think but think about this, but sometimes I think it was my allergy medication that was indirectly responsible for the meningitis that led to my spinal cord injury.

About a month before I got sick, I had switched allergy medications. The medication worked in clearing up my nasal passages.  Howver, as with most OTC medication, I believe the primary purpose of medications is to resolve the symptoms, and not the underlying cause.

The sinus issues I had were severe. If I hadn't taken allergy medication, my nose would be, at the same time, congested and runny.  And I'd often go through a box of tissues every two days.  Heck, even with allergy medications, i would still go through a box a week.

I think the medication did reduce the mucous buildup inside my nose, which gave me relief, but did not 1. kill off the agents that was causing the allergic reaction, and/or prevented mucous production so when a virus did invade my nasal passages, could not put up a defense and the virus was able to make its way to the spinal cord.

This is why I believe it is important to treat the cause, rather than the symptoms.  And the best thing is, they aren't mutually exclusive.  You can treat the symptoms while trying to treat the cause.

We usually do this when we catch colds.  There is no cure for the common cold, but we will take medication to treat the symptoms while the cold virus runs its course.

However, during all those months of taking allergy medications that worked for me (I spent years trying all sorts of allergy medications, and finally there were two that worked), I should have also continued my research in curing the cause, rather than masking the symptoms.  Doctors are trained to rid us of our symptoms, so when I went to my ENT and told him that the allergy medication was working and I could breathe normally, of course, that was taken as good news and that was it until my next follow-up.

But I can't but think that the allergy medication somehow reduced my bodies ability to fend off invaders, and that is how I ended up with meningitis.

Of course, I will continue to take medications that resolve the symptoms when I catch a cold, but I will still continue with my "cold killer" diets and such when I get sick.  They might not help with the symptoms, and they might not always reduce the duration of the cold (and in my case in 2012, did not prevent it from morphing into meningitis), but it is an effort to tackle the cause, and not just the symptoms.