http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/final-difficult-days-brittany-murphy-70059
This is a sad story. But it also makes me angry because it was easily preventable. As was my brother’s death. People think they can take any number of OTC or prescription medications and there is no problem with it because they are prescribed by a doctor or sold in a drugstore so they must be safe, right?
Wrong.
My brother was prescribed over 5 different daily medications by his 1 doctor. He told his doctor that he didn’t want so many and wanted to be weaned off them all because of how they made him feel and he didn’t need them. The doctor scoffed. This doctor saw my brother for maybe 10 minutes each month and then handed him his scrips for refill. Clearly he was very interested in helping him. My brother had made a request to change doctors (was on state medical assistance so needed to go through bureaucratic channels to approve the change) the week prior to his death. My brother should have never been on any of these (he was put on them in drug rehab…awesome therapy.)
Both my brother and his fiancee told me how when he would go in for his appointment and be in the waiting room, the receptionist (clearly with a medical degree of some kind I’m sure) would offer him free samples of the latest and greatest crap they were pushing. Wait? To mix with my other prescriptions he would ask? Oh – it didn’t matter was the response. Just give them a try. What??? And they would offer them to his fiancee too – who was NOT a patient. She gave me the bag of his pill bottles. Yep – all the same doctor. All prescribed on the same date.
I hate psychiatrists. They are a joke. And I hate their drugs. I will never, ever change my mind that they killed my brother. Who did take them as prescribed and didn’t abuse or doctor shop like half of Hollywood (and I’m sure a whole bunch of regular folk) seems to. Go ahead and call me irresponsible for saying it as a blanket statement. Call me Tom Cruise, I don’t care.
Any therapist who isn’t there to listen to your issues and talk you through and help you understand your problems and how to deal with them but writes you a prescription instead doesn’t care about helping you. Just take the edge off. Get you in and out, bill you and see you next month for your new prescription which is a HUGE business. In an annual physical, when I mentioned my heart racing to the doctor, she said it was anxiety. I told her she wrong. She offered to write me a prescription for some psych crap. I told her to take a hike and left. When my heart thing occurred again, and I saw a cardiac specialist, when I told him that, he said that doctor is a disgrace and should have her license taken away (Stanford grad mind you) since I had an actual (very minor) physical heart condition. So she made her 100% incorrect diagnosis and was willing to give me drugs based on 1 comment that I made and 10 minutes of her seeing me. Sounds about right.
These drugs are far more dangerous than illegal street drugs. They are dangerous because people have this weird trust in them. You do heroin, you know there is a possibility of an OD. Too much crack? Probably a very bad thing. But these – these are safe right? They were approved by the FDA. Pfft.
“The irony, Simon insisted, was that Brittany literally could not do drugs. In her early teens, she had been diagnosed with a heart murmur, so Brittany knew illegal drugs could endanger her life. That fear, Sharon said, that made it impossible for Brittany to use cocaine or stimulants.”
“She took the antibiotic Biaxin, migraine pills, cough medicine and an over-the-counter nasal spray. The day she died, she had also taken an anti-depression drug (fluoxetine, aka Prozac), an anti-seizure drug (Klonopin), an anti-inflammatory (methylprednisolone) and a beta blocker that Simon gave her, as well as Vicoprofen to ease pain from her period. But Brittany kept getting sicker, and her laryngitis during her final 10 days was the worst of her life. She was also weakened by her period — the second in a month — which was causing anemia that cut her red-blood count to a quarter of normal.”
What person takes all of the above and doesn’t think there might be an issue with it?? And one could say “Oh, that was her fault for taking so many without a doctor’s advice.” Well, that is true. Very true. Everyone is responsible for the decisions they make. But then, my brother had 5 different daily medications – all from his one and only doctor. A doctor he asked to be weaned off the meds. And he died of drug toxicity. He probably assumed his doctor knew what he was doing to some degree though. Wrong.
The police officer I spoke with about my brother (in order to get an autopsy, I had to start a police report for the ME to step in) said that they don’t get many calls for ODs on narcotics anymore except for street people. But tons and tons for ODs due to medications. Kids take their parents, people buy them off the street, they trade them, or they are improperly and overly prescribed. She said they refer to the various doctors and hospitals around there as candy stores. Nice.
Might there be a good doctor out there who really wants to help people? Sure, I’m sure there is. But that doctor probably isn’t peddling a bunch of drugs as the cure. And people need to start realizing popping a pill isn’t the cure. It’s simply a mask at best. A band-aid. People can’t sleep. Take Ambien! That will fix it! No – you have an issue that is causing you not to sleep. That’s the problem you should be addressing. I’m sad – take an upper. I can’t concentrate – take some ADHD meds. I’m “manic” – take a mood stabilizer. Doctors prescribe anti-depressants to some people to quit smoking. WHAT?! Why?? What the hell is wrong with people that they view this as acceptable? Just drug yourself. That doesn’t actually fix anything but who cares. And guaranteed – you will need something else, and then something else. And soon you will have a bathroom cabinet full of crap too.
Read Carrie Fisher’s “Wishful Drinking” or watch the HBO special. She is an incredibly talented writer. And funny as hell. She’s Princess Leia for cryin’ out loud. But it’s frightening to me too. And she doesn’t just medicate, she’s had electric-shock therapy. That’s a whole other level of scary. But then this is the same profession who brought us LSD and lobotomies. *thumbs up*
It shocks me when I find out people I know are taking this crap for whatever “ails” them. I see people tweet all the time about their meds. A Lot. WTH. But a drugged society is a quiet and complacent society I suppose.
I think this entire profession is a joke. Always will. And when I read more and more stories like this, I truly hope others will too. Sadly, most will probably just look at the obvious villain (the husband was quite the jackass) and blame it all on him. But he had quite a bit of help.
