Ledger died of prescription drug overdose

The toxicology reports have come back regarding the cause of death of actor Heath Ledger, and as it turns out, he died of an "accidental overdose" of a number of prescription drugs, among them Valium, OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax, Restoril and Unisom. Now the question begs, why? These drugs were prescribed by doctors both in England and the US, and this leaves me to wonder if Ledger told his doctors what he had been prescribed and in what amounts. I know that each and every time I go to my doctor, they ask me what, if anything, I am on, even if I am on a medication that my doctor prescribed. For all they know, I could have gone to another doctor for another problem and gotten prescribed some other medication by them. After all, it is incumbent on the patient to know what they are taking and in what amounts and to communicate that to their doctors so that you don't get prescribed something that will interact with something else that you are on. It is also incumbent on the patient to ask questions about their meds to both their doctor and their pharmacist and to read the patient pamphlets that come with each prescription. Sure, this puts a heck of a burden on the patient to be informed, but they should be. Obviously, these medications that Ledger took, when taken together, had a fatal consequence and resulted in his very sad and untimely death.

I don't know whether he simply didn't take the responsibility of learning what to take, when to take it and in what amounts, or whether he was so wound up from his recent movie roles that he decided to try to take as much medicine as possible in order to try to get some badly needed sleep. After all, he'd just jetted in from England where he was working on a film and was probably jet lagged and exhausted and just wanted to get some rest before going on to Vancouver to work on the next segment of filming, and probably thought that taking a whole lot of pain killers, anti-anxiety drugs and sleep aids would let him relax enough to get some rest. I don't know, and I don't suppose we'll ever know what happened and why, but it's just so sad and tragic that such a talented young man died so young basically from "accidental" abuse of prescription drugs. Whenever you are on any medication, you need to know what drug interacts with what and communicate as much as you can to your doctor about your concerns, especially if you are taking multiple medications for different conditions. It's one thing to die of an abuse of cocaine or crack or heroin or some other illegal drug; it's yet another thing to die from accidentally mixing prescriptions. I just hope that Ledger's untimely death provides a kick in the pants and a serious wake up call about the dangers of accidentally mixing prescription drugs.