How does one "accidentally" die of an overdose of a half dozen pain killers and sleeping meds?

Generally people who OD aren't prescribed the meds they are on (or they are 'doctor shopping' and getting meds from several different ones).

Either that or they are actually prescribed something, but they also use pills they buy illegally too.

There have been people to OD on a lot less than you would think - a lot of it has to do with the fact that their bodies are already messed up from doing drugs all the time, combined with some people having a predisposition to stroke or heart attack, it is easy to accidentally (albeit stupidly, and avoidably) OD.

Not Easy but not rare....when some individuals suffer from certain psychiatric conditions such as chronic forms of deliriums, dissociative disorders and other conditions that affect both functioning memory, judgement and perception, they can forget that medications were already taken at a particular time during the day as prescribed.

medications are taken twice and even three times the dose. there have been cases were people take a second and third overdose due to memory and congnitive dysfunction and realise all of sudden their mistake. they try to induce vomiting or contact emergency services.

the invention of the sorted pillbox with dates and times of the week was introduced for that reason. with that simple box ppl avoid overdosing on medicines cause the pills are sorted in such a way that a dose is take only once. then again one has to remeber to place the pills on the right slots in the morning...

Not nearly enough, Tylenol is less lethal than you think. Believe me, I had a friend who downed a whole bottle of those puppies, was pretty sick and in a bad condition for a week, but survived it with flying colors. I wouldn't even bother going through that pain, and putting the burden on other people to take care of you if you feel you are that worthless. Just go talk to a counselor because at this point you have already failed at committing suicide, so it's good to get your life back on track.

I think that it's accidental because once you take a few you sort of have a "high" and not really realizing what your doing because you are high off the drugs you've taken and you take more and so on and so forth.

One of my friends friend almost died of an overdose but thankfully they got him to thehospital in time

BTW: a doctor doesn't have to prescribe you medications, you just have to know who, and where to get your drugs from

I'd say it means that he wasn't trying to take his life, so they call it an accident.

And I have, in the past, been on a combination of pain, sleeping and anti inflammatory pills all at once. The pain pills were narcotics too. No one was paying attention to how many I took each day. I don't see how doctors can do that.

My understanding also is that he got some of them in London. So, obviously not his regular doctor. If he was, in fact, an addict... they have ways of getting their drug of choice irregardless of what doctors do.

It's just terribly sad in general.

It's not like he said to himself "I will take this one and see what happens!"

He knew exactly what he was doing, but I'm sure he had no idea it would have a deathly effect. The doctor was turning his head when perscribing them, not either asking what else he was taking, or Heath didn't think it mattered.

Like the person above me said, you lose track of days. I took one xanex once and lost track of 1/2 a day. A few years later, I took one and a half and lost a day and a half. I have NO memory on what happened.

Well, take a few and then wait and see if you can remember which ones you took or how many of them you did take.

I actually lost an entire day once after taking two "coffins".

And, I don't mean sleeping. I simply have no memory of that day.

Well if someone is already quite drugged up on either a pain killer or an sleeping med then could make a really stupid choice, in a drugged stupor, by taking another drug. Impaired by one drug then loading up on another one while really out of it already.

Another question, who actually takes 6 meds at a time other than terminally ill people and junkies.

does it really matter because it didnt mean to happen nothing was wrong with he didnt mean to why would he kill himself!! RIP HEATH LEDGER he was a great actor and he will be remembered