Media lab

Taking over the counter drug for some of the symptom of cold, fever and some ailments that we experience is not the best thing to do; it is actually deprivation of ones defence mechanisms. This is because some of the common sickness like cold serves as defence mechanism to the body. Common cold tends to notify a person of the environment he or she is and sometimes tells you to relocate from the place. If these symptoms are not there it might result into organ damage without notification.
Defences like running nose, cough, fever and diarrhoea, are beneficial because they tend to notify us of an underline problems, for instance a person experiencing diarrhoea will know that he or she has taking something that is toxic and will stop and desist from taking such things. Some of these diseases also help in the cleansing process. For instance, when a person coughs, it cleans the bacterial from the respiratory passage and the lungs. The problem we are facing is the ability to distinguish between disease and defence of the body systems.
Since the pathogens that cause diseases evolved before us, we are liable to them, so there is a need for our body to fight those pathogens and our body has over time develop these defence mechanism against these pathogens.

These defence mechanism are so important to the body to the extent that if they are absent in the body, it can lead so impaired function of the systems or even death. For instance, the early nausea experienced by the pregnant women  most times prevent them from eating bad food that can injure their foetus and also people that  experience no pain always have joint problems or die young.
REFERENCE:
David Krog (2003)  http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_krogh_biology_3/ Retrieval Date: April 23; 2008
Anthony Trollope (June 1995): Sickness can be Good; http://www.chester.ac.uk/~sjlewis/DM/TEXTS/TEXT2.H Retreival Date:April 23, 2008.