Heath Ledger death ruled "accidental"

[Bob Juch]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

[ne1410s]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

Prolly from six different doctors.

[Sir_Galahad]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

Good. Now that that's settled, can we move on to more important issues?

[Rexer25]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

Good. Now that that's settled, can we move on to more important issues?

Yeah, like who's gonna be Britney conservator?

[fantine33]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

Prolly from six different doctors.

That's a little unfair and judgmental. Granted, I don't know a lot about Heath Ledger and haven't really read much about him or his death, other than the basic magazine story. But at any given time, I have at least six different prescription drugs in my system.

[Bob Juch]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

Prolly from six different doctors.

That's a little unfair and judgmental. Granted, I don't know a lot about Heath Ledger and haven't really read much about him or his death, other than the basic magazine story. But at any given time, I have at least six different prescription drugs in my system.

Yes, but are half of them painkillers, e.g. Oxycontin?

[fantine33]

Prolly from six different doctors.

That's a little unfair and judgmental. Granted, I don't know a lot about Heath Ledger and haven't really read much about him or his death, other than the basic magazine story. But at any given time, I have at least six different prescription drugs in my system.

Yes, but are half of them painkillers, e.g. Oxycontin?

Yes, they are.

I was basically commenting on the 'six different doctors' line, although I guess the accidental in quotes is along the same vein. I suppose that ne1410s could have read the list of whatever the drugs were (I have no idea, myself) but, since his post was one minute after the initial one, I assumed that the response was basically a knee-jerk one. If that was not the case, then I'll take away the unfair and keep the judgmental.

[eyégor]

He had six different prescription drugs in his system.

As for my system, I ran out of fingers...

EDIT -

Guess I'd better not die. Works for me.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

The finding is accidental death from the abuse of prescription drugs.

[mrkelley23]

Some of us find that finding oxymoronic.

[Bixby17]

The finding is accidental death from the abuse of prescription drugs.

I believe that prescription drug abuse is one of the biggest problems that are society is facing today.

There's all sorts of crimes that you can't imagine your neighbors doing, but script abuse is not one of them. With both the adults and children.

The husband deals with script abusers in his criminal practice all the time--some accused of that, and some who did whatever crime they did under the influence. They are hard people to talk to.

You might recall the story about how when I was preggers with JJ, I was in an auto accident with someone who I later found out had a history of script abuse. She gave me expired insurance information, and though I was very polite during our conversation and very obviously pregnant, she started freaking out and f bombed me in front of her small children. I figured she was a script abuser before I knew for sure later on.

Defensive driving to me is assuming everyone on the road is either abusing scripts or distracted by their cell phone.

As a society, I think we have become:

1. Too dependant on medications.
2. Many of those medications have not been well studied, and that the population is being experimented on.
3. That we don't know how a lot of these medications interact with each other.
4. And that large numbers of people think if something is prescribed, you can't really have a problem with it.
5. And that children are getting into these scripts because it is easy to do.
6. As a society, we would rather have a pill to fix something than to do things that are hard to fix stuff.
7. Doing things to your brain chemistry using medication without knowing exactly what will happen with that is a choice that should be made very carefully--I think more carefully than some people make that choice.

I do think that there is a place for medication, and I am very thankful for the advances in migraine medication, for example. But script abuse and our societies desire to over-medicate is a huge problem.

/minor rantage

[ne1410s]

But script abuse and our societies desire to over-medicate is a huge problem.

Amen, Sister!! Tell it.

[tlynn78]

A friend divorced her husband (a doc) due to presciption drug abuse. Two years later her two kids were spending their visitation with him over the New Year and they found him dead in bed, od'd. Horrible.


t.

[Bixby17]

A friend divorced her husband (a doc) due to presciption drug abuse. Two years later her two kids were spending their visitation with him over the New Year and they found him dead in bed, od'd. Horrible.


t.

I fired my OB/GYN when I was extremely prego with JJ. I was worried I couldn't get another doc, but the doc I had was acting like a big weirdo.

I find out later he was having a huge script problem. This made sense to me because all the friend I knew that went to him said that he was always trying to push xanax, diet pills etc every time they had a checkup with him.

He did give away year's supply of birth control pills, so that was a reason a lot of folks saw him.

In other news, Britney's mom is alleging that Sam Lufti drugged Britney to control her life:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... HUSIG6.DTL

If even a part of that stuff is true, it is very very sad. It would be weird to go through life not knowing if you could trust anyone.

[gsabc]

Ledger and Elvis will have to get together and compare notes.

[marrymeflyfree]

I was basically commenting on the 'six different doctors' line...

One of the reports said that he did have at least a couple of different doctors, both here and in the UK. Unfortunately, that is a big problem where prescription drugs go - no continuity of care. One doc doesn't know what the other has prescribed, and if the patient doesn't know or care to disclose it - recipe for a bad cocktail.

[Bob Juch]

"Mr. Heath Ledger died as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine," medical examiner's spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said in a news release.

The drugs are the generic names for the OxyContin painkiller, the anti-anxiety drug Valium, Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, and the sleep aids Restoril and Unisom. Hydrocodone is another name for Vicodin.

[ghostjmf]

I don't know beans about Heath Ledger, but it occurs to me in later life now, after reading about various addicts' behavior & all, that most of the "rock star suicides" that rattled the 60s & 70s were very likely not suicides at all, be the cause heroin or prescription drugs. Just taking that dose that pushes the user over the borderline is way too easy. So I'm pretty sure, since they left no sad notes about how they wanted to end it all, that Janis Joplin & Jimi Hendrix, for instance, were the victims of their own "edge" behavior, but didn't intend for it to go that way at all.

By the time Elvis did himself in, the forensics people had gotten better at diagnosing interacting drugs, etc.

[mrkelley23]

Ledger and Elvis will have to get together and compare notes.

By the time Elvis did himself in, the forensics people had gotten better at diagnosing interacting drugs, etc.

While there are certainly lots of similarities (polypharmacy, beginning with sleeping pills to get over insomnia, followed by uppers to counter the effects of the sleeping pills) between Ledger and Elvis, both the initial ME's report and a 1994 re-opening of the autopsy ruled that Elvis's death was caused by a heart attack, not a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise.[/quote]

[VAdame]

The finding is accidental death from the abuse of prescription drugs.

Some of us find that finding oxymoronic.

Why??????????

Presumably he took them intending to sleep, not to die.

[BackInTex]

The finding is accidental death from the abuse of prescription drugs.

Some of us find that finding oxymoronic.

Why??????????

Presumably he took them intending to sleep, not to die.

I think the term 'abuse' implies intent. Not necessarily to die, though.

It's like someone thinking they can fly so they jump on a cliff. They didn't intend to die, but it certainly wasn't accidental that they jumped.

Ledger apparently intended to ingest 6 different drugs.

[BackInTex]

As a society, I think we have become:

1. Too dependant on medications.
2. Many of those medications have not been well studied, and that the population is being experimented on.
3. That we don't know how a lot of these medications interact with each other.
4. And that large numbers of people think if something is prescribed, you can't really have a problem with it.
5. And that children are getting into these scripts because it is easy to do.
6. As a society, we would rather have a pill to fix something than to do things that are hard to fix stuff.
7. Doing things to your brain chemistry using medication without knowing exactly what will happen with that is a choice that should be made very carefully--I think more carefully than some people make that choice.

I do think that there is a place for medication, and I am very thankful for the advances in migraine medication, for example. But script abuse and our societies desire to over-medicate is a huge problem.

/minor rantage

I guess it just sounds better coming from you.

[Rexer25]

As a society, I think we have become:

1. Too dependant on medications.
2. Many of those medications have not been well studied, and that the population is being experimented on.
3. That we don't know how a lot of these medications interact with each other.
4. And that large numbers of people think if something is prescribed, you can't really have a problem with it.
5. And that children are getting into these scripts because it is easy to do.
6. As a society, we would rather have a pill to fix something than to do things that are hard to fix stuff.
7. Doing things to your brain chemistry using medication without knowing exactly what will happen with that is a choice that should be made very carefully--I think more carefully than some people make that choice.

I do think that there is a place for medication, and I am very thankful for the advances in migraine medication, for example. But script abuse and our societies desire to over-medicate is a huge problem.

/minor rantage

I guess it just sounds better coming from you.

BiT,

I owe you an apology for my remark the other day. You made a general statement about an issue, and I took it personally. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry.

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

Ledger and Elvis will have to get together and compare notes.

By the time Elvis did himself in, the forensics people had gotten better at diagnosing interacting drugs, etc.

While there are certainly lots of similarities (polypharmacy, beginning with sleeping pills to get over insomnia, followed by uppers to counter the effects of the sleeping pills) between Ledger and Elvis, both the initial ME's report and a 1994 re-opening of the autopsy ruled that Elvis's death was caused by a heart attack, not a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise.

Wasn't Elvis on the toilet as well? Heath was naked in his bed.

[mrkelley23]

Ledger and Elvis will have to get together and compare notes.

By the time Elvis did himself in, the forensics people had gotten better at diagnosing interacting drugs, etc.

While there are certainly lots of similarities (polypharmacy, beginning with sleeping pills to get over insomnia, followed by uppers to counter the effects of the sleeping pills) between Ledger and Elvis, both the initial ME's report and a 1994 re-opening of the autopsy ruled that Elvis's death was caused by a heart attack, not a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise.

Wasn't Elvis on the toilet as well? Heath was naked in his bed.

He was at least in the vicinity. Without getting overly graphic, there was some speculation that the heart attack was at least in part brought on by the effort of trying to have a BM in the midst of the chronic constipation caused by his drug abuse.

Lots of speculation, lots of possible links between the polypharmacy and his death. But what is KNOWN is that he had a heart attack, and that he had multiple drugs in his system at the time of his death. None of the drug levels were considered lethal, however.