Heath Ledger's Accidental Overdose - Discussion Thread (Was: Breaking News)

[Lumière]

...
Good people die from prescription drug issues every day, so I am less interested in finding fault and more interested in finding ways to prevent future tragedies.

Thank you Phillip.

Sadly, Heath is not the first and will not be the last to go this way.

[Jeff Wrangler]

None of the drugs were taken in concentrations high enough to be lethal on their own, the report said, but the combination was deadly.

Which is why I wish they would not use the term "abuse." Abuse suggests that he took more than he was supposed to.

A very likely scenario: Heath went to different doctors (which is common for people who travel a lot), told them what he had been taking and said it didn't work for him, so they prescribed something different. The doctors may not have realized that he would keep taking the one he said didn't work anymore, so they didn't advise him about the interactions. So Heath, in his mind, had disclosed what else he was taking... but wasn't told they'd be dangerous to take together, so he assumed--as they were all both prescribed and disclosed--that they were all safe in combination.

This is what I choose to believe.

I agree this is quite likely. The longer I work on the fringes of the medical profession, the more I come to understand that doctors are not gods. The sad lesson here for everyone may be that it is our own responsibility to make sure our doctors know all the medications we are taking--over-the-counter stuff, too--and to ask what is or is not safe to be taken together.

[belbbmfan]

He probably believed what all of us would have thought, too.  That a young, strong, basically healthy man would not be in any real danger of succumbing to over-medication, especially when the drugs themselves were not seen to be particularly dangerous in themselves.

I think that's exactly it, Meryl. They don't seem to be dangerous. And who reads (or understands) the small print that is put on the bottle anyway.

[karen1129]

Oxycontin and Vicodin are powerfully addicting drugs.  
Especially Oxycontin.  The abuse of these two drugs is probably
more common then most people realize.  
My brother, who had back problems and surgery took these drugs for
many years.  And.... there came a time when the doctor's refused to
write him anymore prescriptions.
These two drugs are one of the most popular drugs on the illegal market right now.
They find a way to get them.  Getting off these is very hard physically.  
He finds them..... it ain't that hard.  
Has he taken more then the prescribed dosage.... you bet.  Do we worry.... yeah....
but he ain't always truthful with us.  

I don't blame the doctors.  They told him the risks and so did the pharmacist.  

  

[Verona]

And once again, it is important to note that none of the drugs found in his system were at a high enough level to indicate deliberate abuse. Take one of these, two of those, another one of those... curtains. I even read recently of a woman who died because she used a recommended numbing gel to prepare for hair removal treatment... she put it all over her legs and covered them with plastic wrap. It was too much for her system to ingest.

There are times when I have allergy problems and take an antihistamine. Then later on in the day, I get a bad headache, and unthinkingly take a few ibuprofen. I have epilepsy, so I take that at night, also unthinkingly. And then I feel awful and can't sleep, so I might take a couple of Tylenol PM.

So let's tally that up. Antihistamine. Ibuprofen. Anti-seizure drug. Tylenol. Sleep aid. All in one day, innocently taken at the proper dosage level, by one 108-lb woman. I'm probably lucky to be alive.

[Sandy]

Just been seeking solace with my mum on the phone.

She suffers from depression and takes lithium and a variety of other drugs.  She also has prescription sleeping pills and can take one at night if required.

She told me that when she first got the prescription, she was having a bad day and got into bed and took one. It turns out however that she got out of bed, went downstairs, had a cup of tea with my Dad and watched 'Ice Road Truckers'.  She woke the next morning with no recollection whatsoever of the previous evening, from dinner time onwards.

Needless to say, she went back to the Doctor.

And once again, it is important to note that none of the drugs found in his system were at a high enough level to indicate deliberate abuse.

So, I guess I should be comforted.  I had hoped that when the results came out, I would be.  But I'm not.  I guess time heals. 

[ifyoucantfixit]

        For those that think he may have been taking his pills irresponsibly and was throwing
caution to the wind.  I have this to say.  When you take pills every day for whatever reason.
You can sometimes just forget.  Did I take that already, or was that earlier, or some such
lapse of medicating period.  If you are taking those kinds of drugs they also contribute to
the inability to remember.  When, if or how long it has been since your last dose.  If you do
not just write down the times which few people do.  I can see him doing that totally unintentionally. I know from personal experience that any of those drugs taken in conjunction
with a muscle relaxant can be deadly.  I almost had it happen to me.  I was not overmedicating
and only taking the prescribed dosage.  The public at large has no idea how easily this can
happen.  The pharmaceuticals and doctors dont want you to really know i believe.

[Verona]

Just been seeking solace with my mum on the phone.

She suffers from depression and takes lithium and a variety of other drugs.  She also has prescription sleeping pills and can take one at night if required.

She told me that when she first got the prescription, she was having a bad day and got into bed and took one.  That is the last she can recall.  It turns out however that she got out of bed, went downstairs, had a cup of tea with my Dad and watched 'Ice Road Truckers'.  She woke the next morning with no recollection whatsoever of the previous evening, from dinner time onwards.

Needless to say, she went back to the Doctor.

So, I guess I should be comforted.  I had hoped that when the results came out, I would be.  But I'm not.  I guess time heals. 

Sandy, I know what you're going through. I have the same issues with my mom. Pill upon pill upon pill, all prescribed. She was taking Ambien, and experienced the same things as your mom. Now she's on Lunesta (which she takes every single night because she is convinced she won't sleep without it), in addition to anti-anxiety and pain drugs which she refuses to accept should NOT ever be taken with a glass of wine.

This whole thing is an epidemic of sickening, heartbreaking proportions.

[Marge_Innavera]

No, this was clear abuse, but perhaps not intentional.  It's abusive because no responsible doctor would have prescribed all of those drugs to be taken in combination and he took them all over a short period of time.  That's a shocking list of drugs.  It's accidental because he did not intentionally end his life.  

Now whether he hoarded earlier prescriptions and took them all at once, or just as likely a doctor cumulatively prescribed every one of them over a period of time (but not intended to be taken together), is unknown at this time, and should be investigated.

I seem to recall an earlier report mentioning that the medications they found were not prescribed by just one doctor, and some of them were from outside the US. So it might have been a good example of "medicine" morphing into "health care," with a purely consumerist, piecemeal approach.

Unfortunately, just the fact that drugs were involved will be fuel for some people, for whatever reason, to stick with the "Hollywood lifestyle" and "well, that's what you get" schtick. And of course, this is totally hypocritical especially considering how many children and adolescents are put on prescription drugs as an easy alternative to understanding and addressing behavior problems.  I am glad that there's now some ammunition to counter these sleazy speculations about Heath being a junkie or his death being suicide, especially for Matilda's sake.

[Sandy]

For those that think he may have been taking his pills irresponsibly and was throwing
caution to the wind.  I have this to say.  When you take pills every day for whatever reason.
You can sometimes just forget. 

Hi Janice, I've never thought that Heath was a drug abuser but my problem was to do with the word abuse in the coroner's statement.  My previous post about my Mum however confirms your theory on the fact that one can have a reaction without over medicating.

It is just an incredible amount of drugs that were found in his body and considering that two do the same thing, it just seems so ubelievable that he would have these prescribed to him.  But, like others have said, he may well have been told to discard the original prescription.  

And given that there was no amount of any one drug which would have been deadly, then maybe he was just prescribed a little of each and used them unconsciously/stupidly/irresponsibly.  We'll never know.