Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Heath Ledger Remembrance Forum
I know we've talked about this before, but
optom3:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on July 24, 2008, 10:38:39 pm ---Tell you what. The sister of one of my coworkers swallowed a bunch of pills about 10 years ago - sedatives, painkillers (she'd been prescribed) and Tylenol. She was transported to the hospital (because she herself callled 911). They pumped her stomach. Did whatever it was they had to do to get the sedatives and painkillers out of her system. But it was the Tylenol - acetominaphen - that they could not clear. Her liver shut down because of it, and everything else followed.
He told me that about five years ago, and to this day, I swear by Motrin.
--- End quote ---
You are so right about the Paracetamol/actetominophen thing. It is easily available and probably one of the most dangerous meds. around.I really did see a young girl die after taking less than 20. I will never forget it to this day. She had an argument with her boyfriend and thought it would bring him back. She left to many hours to call the hospital and although felt fine the next day, she was not allowed home, which she could not understand.
She went into liver and complete organ failure litle by little over the next 2 weeks. It really does still haunt me to this day.There is only one antidote to this particular drug.
and it is only effective up to about 10 hours maximum after the overdose.I used to work a s a clinical chemist before doing optometry and, with every overdose you had to regualrly check the blood levels.
That girl just haunts me. I remember her sobbing saying she only meant to frighten her boyfriend.She was 2 years younger than me at the time.
Katie77:
Optum, how terrible to witness such a tragedy of that young girl.
Something i am curious about, in America and England, can you still buy these products in bottles?
Here in Australia, all pain killers, and most other tablet medications, and all prescription tablets are in bubble packs, where you have to push the tablet thru the foil to get it. Each tablet is in its individual bubble
I think the main reason this was introduced was so, it was more difficult to get a handful of tablets to take at one time, albeit, not impossible, but it takes a bit more time to push each individual tablet thru its bubble, as opposed to just emptying a handful of tablets in ones hand to gulp down.
I have noticed in movies and TV shows from America, they still seem to have these tablets loose in jars or bottles.
optom3:
--- Quote from: louise van hine on July 23, 2008, 11:42:43 am ---actually acetaminophen is the compound name. Paracetamol is a brand name, and is the equivalent to Tylenol, which is the most common brand name for acetaminophen in the USA. In addition, Paracetamol gets compounded with codeine to produce other Paracetamol brands, just as they compound it with codeine in the US to produce Tylenol 3, which is acetaminophen with 8 grams of codeine.
--- End quote ---
The actual full generic name for it is para acetyly aminophenol.I the U.K that is shortened to paracetamol, in the states to acetaminophen.
So both countries take different parts of the full generic name. It is then branded as hundreds of different things and combined with various opiate derivatives and caffeine, even aspirin.
The real problem I have is that paracetamol and acetaminophen are the same thing.I spent years as a clinical chemist before becomming an optometrist and had no idea when we moved here that the 2 drugs were the same.
I could very easily have overdosed without knowing. Even when I went to my doctor,and showed him the Rx meds. I was on back in the U.K, something called solpadol. which is paracetamol/codeine phosphate 500/15 he had no idea what it was.
It was only when I went delving into it all that I realised the way 2 countries have taken different letters from the generic compound to give an OTC medicine a name.
I think that is incredibly dangerous given the number of U.K visitors to the states and vice versa.By all means rebrand with watever name you want, but the generic should always be the same.
I know I get on my high horse about this, but once you have seen one paracetamol/acetaminophen overdose, you never ever want to see another.Nearly all are accidental, or cries for help, the patient then usually lives long enough to find out that they are going to die.Horrendous beyond words.
optom3:
--- Quote from: Katie77 on July 26, 2008, 09:45:55 am ---Optum, how terrible to witness such a tragedy of that young girl.
Something i am curious about, in America and England, can you still buy these products in bottles?
Here in Australia, all pain killers, and most other tablet medications, and all prescription tablets are in bubble packs, where you have to push the tablet thru the foil to get it. Each tablet is in its individual bubble
I think the main reason this was introduced was so, it was more difficult to get a handful of tablets to take at one time, albeit, not impossible, but it takes a bit more time to push each individual tablet thru its bubble, as opposed to just emptying a handful of tablets in ones hand to gulp down.
I have noticed in movies and TV shows from America, they still seem to have these tablets loose in jars or bottles.
--- End quote ---
It is a 50/50 split in the U.K. They limit how many you could buy at any one time, but at most chemists/pharmacies, you can just ask for the meds.I regularly, when in the U.K would ask for a box of 100 co-codamol which is paracetamol and codeine phosphate combined.Slightly lower dose of the codeine component than you would get from a doctor.
They came in soluble form in a large box.The girl behind the counter would signal to the pharmacist, who would look me over and O.K it. So I guess the answer is it is very easy to get enough to kill yourself.
I could quite simply have then walked down to the next chemist and repeated the whole thing.In the small town where I had my practice there were 7 chemists that I could easily walk to.So 700 tablets of co- codamol.
Mandy21:
Fiona, please forgive me for having brought up a painful memory for you. I've read a great deal of your posts these last few months, but I'd completely forgotten that you had to go through that memory, or I would have kept my damned mouth shut with my post about how hard it is to get OTC medicine in Britain.
My only point was, and I've never considered suicide, so how would I really know -- it just seems to me that if someone wants to kill themselves with drugs, they'll find a way, no matter how many bubble-wrapped dividers come between them and the almighty.
From the second I watched the newscast where they came across and said, just casually, out of the blue, that Heath Ledger was found dead blah-blah-blah, like it was barely even noteworthy, and I dropped my dinner glass, and said Jesus God No and sat there in my dead daddy's chair, in front of my poor sick 79-year-old mother, without speaking, or barely breathing, for an uncountable amount of time ----- from the second I watched that, never then, and never since, and never now, would it have ever occurred to me that Heath would knowingly take himself out of this world.
It's just not possible for anyone to even think such a thing, of Heath.
It was a tragic accident, in his case. Nothing more, nothing less.
That's all I was saying. Please forgive me, Fiona. Thank you.
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