<p>Yup. I can’t take Advil or similar products. Doctors outside of my hematologist tell me all the time to take it for fever or pain. I think it’s so automatic that they do it without thinking. </p>
<p>Asd, the issue up for discussion isn’t really overdosing on too many pills. The problem is taking conflicting medications or medications that conflict with a pre-existing condition.</p>
<p>yes asdf - I think you have missed the whole point of this thread. And I believe it is very important for parents to talk to their kids about the dangers of drug interraction. Also youngsters often think over the counter meds are safe to take because they are easy to buy - too many Tylenol can easily cause liver damage. Not as many as one might think.</p>
<p>And doctors are not always completely knowledgeable about medication. I remember my daughter having oral surgery and telling the doc not to prescribe her hydrocodone because she reacts badly to it. So he said he would give her vicodin instead. :rolleyes: Fortunately we knew that vicodin’s main ingredient is hydrocodone as our family doc had warned us to avoid the whole family of drugs. So one does have to be really proactive and aware.</p>
<p>For instance I have found is that doctors (especially surgeons - no offense to any surgeons out there) are very quick to prescribe narcotic type pain killers. My daughter is very accident prone so has been offered very strong painkillers several times since she was small after breaking one bone or another. We already know they make her as sick as a dog so she generlly makes do with advil which generally has been enough. I also know several adults who have been prescribed really strong and addictive painkillers and have not realised the possible danger. I always remember my kids swim coach one day asking me if I had heard of xxxxx that had been prescribed to him for back problems. When I said I had he asked if I knew if it was addictive. I said it was and he said he was wondering because all he could think of was when he could take the next pill! He got a different perscription ASAP.</p>
<p>I agree that our kids need to know that if they take one drug-- whether it’s an antibiotic or whatever-- that they need to be aware of what might interact badly with it, and to always ask. I’m allergic to penicillin, so I always ask about any prescription drug that’s offered to me. That said, according to autopsy reports, Heath Ledger died from taking a mixture of pain killers; anti-anxiety pills; and sleeping pills. He probably took one, which made him less lucid for another, and by the time he took the third set of pills, he was too out of it to remember what he’d taken before. My guess is, this was less of a bad interaction, than simply too many sleeping aids piled one on top of the other. Interestingly, I’d heard Christopher Plummer speak a week or so ago, where they’d both been filming in England-- all the cast members were sick, and he said Heath had pneumonia, for which he’d been given antibiotics. So, he may have been taking that as well. By all accounts, he had a real problem with drugs as well (the non-prescription kind). . . It’s a real shame for anybody, especially one with such an amazing talent.</p>
<p>asdf,
Once my kids turn 18, I can’t be involved in their health care any longer without their explicit consent. They’d darned well better be informed consumers and patients. If they are on maintenance prescription (or OTC) meds, they need to be responsible for knowing the side effects and possible drug interactions of what they take.</p>
<p>Many young adults are off at college with prescription medications that, when mixed with alcohol, other drugs, or herbals, can cause toxic or lethal interactions. I wish this kind of stuff would get covered in health classes – it’s easy for kids to say they won’t do pot or speed, but they think nothing of (or don’t realize the implications of) taking Nyquil with their antidepressant when they have a cold, or self-medicating a twisted ankle with some old Flexeril and then getting behind the wheel.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good point janie. My father was bipolar and on a bunch of meds which for him, unfortunately, did not work. He took sleeping pills and the body gets immune after a while so more are required. I know there were occasions when he would be not lucid and take more pills not remembering having taken them already. Oh the lovely childhood memories - my dad deciding to repair a faulty electric switch in the middle of the night - without turning the power off. The noise of him being thrown across the room by the electric shock when he stuck the screwdriver in. Then again. And again. All this from legally prescribed medication.</p>
<p>My doc says I have substance abuse issues because I will not take narcotic type pills whatever the pain. I wonder why that would be. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I think there is also a danger of taking strong medications when you are alone. Certain medications make you woozy and forgetful. I have certainly forgotten what time I took a medication when I failed to note exactly what time in writing. I council my children to write down what they take so they are 100% sure that it has been long enough for another dose and to always check about other medications they are taking.</p>
<p>Another issue with our kids and meds and especially with school health centers is the propensity to prescribe anti-depressants like candy- all freshman have some sad days, some adapting days, some are depressed needs Rx, others are not. Giving a prescription to all of them means a new pre-existing condition for future life/health insurance applications. If that was not an accurate diagnosis it can be refuted after many years with no meds, but what a pain!</p>
<p>Good thread in terms of the idea. Ledger’s relevance is tangential, given the toxicology report, which stated that he died as a result of acute intoxication caused by a combination of “oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine.”</p>
<p>That’s two powerful, controlled opiates, 3 different benzodiazepines (all fairly powerful antianxiety, “downer” medications), and an additional antihistamine used for sleep purposes.</p>
<p>Tell me next time your college student is taking 5 different controlled, dangerous drugs (all of which have sedative effects) at once. ;)</p>
<p>I also doubt Ledger was taking strictly therapeutic dosages of the drugs in question (was probably self-medicating himself), but nonetheless… while the lesson of coordinating medication is a lesson well-learned… Ledger’s case is a tad bit extreme.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Share my idea if it makes you feel safer: engrave and wear a medical alert bracelet engraved with any information you want to communicate.</p>
<p>I believe the emergency rooms and EMT’s always check first for a medic-alert bracelet before they do stuff to unconscious people.</p>
<p>The engraved bracelet doesn’t even need a prescription, or didn’t years ago when I did this for someone. I guess today you’d ask a pharmacist or doctor how to order one, or maybe there are online links by now.</p>
<p>Mr Ledger had both oxycodone (percocet) and hydrocodone(vicodin/lortab) in his system, two nearly identical powerful narcotic pain meds (and very addicting). In his crowd, I would venture to guess that folks know exactly what they are and how they affect you. And folks who want adequate supplies don’t tell one doctor what the other is prescribing, on purpose. </p>
<p>Mr. Ledger was also on Valium AND Xanax AND Restoril (diazepam, alprazolam and temazepram), all tranquilizing benzodiazepams–two used for anxiety and one for sleep. Again, certain crowds are very knowledgable about these “drugs of choice” and again, often “score” by geting one Rx from doc A and another from doc B. They use and abuse these drugs, develop a tolerance, and then have to double up to get the same effect. Add an OTC antihistamine on top, and you have a deadly combination. </p>
<p>We will never know if the combination was accidental or not. My guess is that the combination he took was quite intentional, the outcome, not so much.</p>
<p>sunnyflorida: That was my sense. Still just as sad, or even sadder, for him to have felt so unhappy that his life was worth so little to him.</p>
<p>On the subject of this thread, I have now decided to get the pharmacy to print out all the drugs – prescription and over the counter, that would be problematic with son’s ADD medication so he has the info. and doesn’t have to ask. </p>
<p>Thanks, Marian, for motivating me to do this.</p>
<p>You’re welcome, mythmom.</p>
<p>The whole idea of this thread was to get people talking about medications and what people – including our college kids – need to know about them. You and others have taken the thread in a variety of directions I didn’t even think of, and you’ve taught me some things I didn’t know.</p>
<p>One thing that struck me about Ledger’s death was that he had complained about insomnia. He reported that he slept no more than 2 hrs a night while filming the Batman movie. Sleep deprivation is very dangerous and should be treated as a health concern. It seems that he just kept taking more and more of whatever was available in pursuit of rest. My concern from that is that I continue to read and hear about how little college kids sleep. On numerous on this board, I read comments that kids think it is perfectly normal to be up to the wee hours of the morning and kids who want to be in bed by midnight are ridiculed. Soon students start medicating to stay awake - with large doses of caffeine or drugs. Then they have to medicate to get to sleep, the cycle is begun and Ledger showed us how it can end. Parents need to be attuned to their kids’ sleep patterns in high school because it often starts there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>1of42, you are correct, but it does not have to be 5 DEA substances. Sometimes, a combination of simple OTC pills can be dangerous, and it is our responsibility to teach our young that they have to be careful with medications (remember BenGay-caused death?). That’s the point of this thread.</p>
<p>Indeed, thank you for raising all these points. Good topic to discuss with kids, even though they may be over 18, or 20, or 24. We all could use these reminders.</p>
<p>Someone earlier said that our kids are old enough to be in charge of their health. Well, I guess I am just going to be one of those interfering old mommies who passes on information to her adult kids.</p>
<p>My H is on Lipitor, and at this dinner party he walked over to the fruit bowl and started to peel a grapefruit. A woman walked over to him and took the fruit away, saying that it was a bad idea to eat that with Lipitor. Thank goodness she knew that he was on Lipitor. The enzymes in grapefuit keep the liver busy and as a result other meds are not getting processed. People have died of kidney failure. </p>
<p>Ofcourse this is in his pharmacist’s insert. But did he read it? How many pharmacists/ doctors verbally remind patients that drugs used to treat high cholesterol, depression, high blood pressure, cancer, depression, pain, impotence, and allergies have serious reactions with grapefruit.</p>
<p>You need to take more than one half grapefruit or 8 oz of grapefruit juice for that reaction to occur. Lipitor is metabolized by the 3A4 enzyme and grapefruit juice inhibits it.
There are the computer prescribing programs, and in general, MDs ignore the warnings which come up. You still get doctors who prescribe iron supplements and ciprofloxacin together, and don’t tell their patients to separate them. Than there are the one’s who tell their patients it’s okay to take Plavix and aspirin together. That’s okay if you want your patient to have an ulcer. MDs do not like to admit their weakness when it comes to pharmaceuticals. They still use the PDR for a major reference. Drug companies have to pay to get into that book, and that’s why you don’t always see the older drugs.
You can always get a copy of your pharmacy record, if you request it. Just give the pharmacy time to do it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But let’s remember that there are some people – including most college students – who do not have the luxury of always having their prescriptions filled at the same pharmacy. For them, pharmacy records do not provide as much of a safety net as they do for those who can always fill prescriptions in the same place.</p>
<p>We don’t even have that luxury. Our prescription plan requires us to do mail order for any ongoing medications and only allows us to use the pharmacist for one off prescriptions. Our Docs often give us samples to tide us over till the mail order supply comes so many of our meds are not even in the local pharmacists database.</p>
<p>Anyone know about mail order pharmacies - will they check for interractions like the local pharmacy? I wonder if the local (well chain but the local branch) would be willing to list the medicines we have to but elsewhere on their database.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I am deeply suspicious of medications from mail order pharmacies because if they’re shipped to your home, and you have a rural (on the street) mailbox, the medicines could be exposed to extremely hot or extremely cold temperatures for hours before you get home from work and pick up the mail. This cannot be good for the drugs. Their labels say that they should be stored under controlled temperature conditions for a reason.</p>
<p>True. But we don’t have a choice. Well we do - we could pay it all out of pocket. But as just our share in 2006 was over $2000 it is not much of a choice.</p>