Dangers of Medication Overdosing and Interactions
Recently a very well know actor passed away from a prescription overdose. I became curious as to how can anyone be so foolish. I was very surprised and frightened when I found out that it’s a very likely event for just about anyone. The example given was that anyone may take something for pain, where the usual dosage may be once every 12 hours. Then they take another dosage in 3 hours because they have not yet gotten any relief and are impatient. This will have the combined effect of 2 to 3 doses. Then you may add an additional medication, of perhaps a common cold medicine or even a glass of wine and WHAM! the effects can be lethal. Typically, the drug interaction depresses respiration, meaning that the person falls asleep, stops breathing and never wakes up. That was what happened to the actor. Scary? You bet! We do this everyday….. without ever given it a second thought…….. because of the amount of drugs accessible to us for every conceivable malady and the ever growing ad campaigns from the different drug companies for their drugs that play our ever growing paranoia on being unwell. Perhaps it’s time we stopped for a minute …………and just think……………