It was just reported on my local news that Tom Petty's autopsy revealed the cause of his death was an "accidental" overdose. When is an overdose not accidental? The report said multiple drugs were found in his system, as is often the case with OD's.
Been awhile since I checked in on this thread. Reading jim94025’s contribution, (and response to my initial entry), I realize how oversimplified and cavalier my comment about opioids appears- I apologize. In terms of overall pain management (especially long term), I agree totally with “Jim” -a multifaceted approach should be the standard of care- with competent physical therapy, (where appropriate) as a center piece. PT is often under utilized and under appreciated in our medical system. Pharmaceuticals (opioid and non-opioid, prescribed and OTC), should be used judiciously and monitored closely. Even NSAIDs, while effective for many types of pain and non addicting, also have the potential for serious side effects if over or carelessly utilized. Medicine is a balancing act to optimize the benefit to potential risk. Combining different pharmaceutical pain control classes can allow you to use lower doses and/or longer dosing intervals to minimize adverse reactions while maximizing therapeutic effects, (and perhaps lower the possibility of addiction). I was only making that comment about opioids in that if I had severe intractable pain, say major trauma, broken hip, or a terminal cancer pain flare, -“1000 mg acetaminophen PO STAT!” - are not the orders I hope to hear as I’m wheeled into the Emergency Department.
Wake Up a Time is another song that really speaks for me. He definitely could capture complex emotions and paint those feelings in music and words. Not a great voice but his expressive intonation carried feeling so well. I recommend the Soundstage Bluray to capture Tom live at his best.
My sympathies go out to you dude. Very sad to hear that your Queen succumbed to our mutual "monkey on the back". All your words ring very close to my experience's and I feel your pain. Sadly, I've walked the same walk. Keep strong bro.
I was airborne for about 100 feet after bike crash and had my 4 ribs cracked on one side I was prescribed opioids (percs) and had them going for few months i could stop it after a week or two, but for some reason kept going till realized I’m not in pain from ribs, but I’m in pain without them. Since endurance wasn’t new for me, it took 5 days of hell to remove and get free
The factual truth is that sweet living and eating America can’t endure any pain without beloved opioids without knowing alternatives. Tell ya what my dad didn’t have time ta tell those delicate, delusional, miserable folks in constant pain: THE SWEETER YOUR LIFE IS — THE LESS PAIN YOU CAN ENDURE
Kosst, I am there in regard to the pain; severe constant pain has only been recent. In regard to "Addiction" I watched it with tearful eyes; a jazz musician I idolized was doing what he had to do right in front of me.
Somehow, back then, drug addiction, according to the public was restricted to "jazz musicians"
In this thread, we're riding in two completely separate trains going down parallel tracks. One is the victim of old age and constant pain that can only be relieved by 'drugs'. He is not trying to get high, he just wants relief from the pain. That might require more drugs than his system can handle, and he checks out.
On the other track is the young pain free (unless you count mental pain) person who wants to get high. But nobody told them about "addiction". Once that happens it all over until they OD. Apparently your wife was on this train.
Just recently Eric Clapton said his hearing and very debilitating Tinitus and other physical problems with nerve damage in his hands .he is almost done with playing music . A Shame withover 50 years of Classic Rock Yardbirds, Cream, And Lots of great music . He just did a nice bluesy Album a few months ago well worth buying !!
We all come on here to learn and/or impart a bit of audiophile knowledge, maybe share a new tweak, or discuss various audio equipment. Posts here run the gamut from helpful to humorous, revelatory to rude...Never have I stopped to think about the person behind the post. Until this thread, all I’ve ever seen is faceless words. The experiences and personal tribulations many of you have chosen to share, to me, are quite human and quite humbling. I have the good fortune of going about my daily life without such issues, and I forget how fortunate I really am. I wish you all better days than the last, and thank you for showing me more than just a screen full of words....
Let’s talk about these old cocker- rockers who only feel comfortable touring no matter how much wealth they have accumulated. It’s their choice to continue to abuse their bodies doing the only job they know how to do and love. I used to race cars in the day, and the thought of putting myself back in that game is suicidal. I am not blaming these high profile types, but when you push yourself as an old man in a young man’s game stuff happens.
My spinal fusion occurred nearly nine years ago. I spent a decade prior seeing doctors with intermittent back issues. I was always told after x-rays that the problem was muscular, given pain meds and muscle relaxers, and sent on my way. Less than one hour before two discs disintegrated, i got the same story. After my surgery, I spent years in varying degrees of pain. I received spinal injections 3 - 4 times annually to try to cope. I now use oxy as prescribed by my doctor. It doesn't take away the pain, but makes it bearable. I follow the scrip to the letter and I am thankful that I have it. Chronic pain is no joke. It doesn't go away, it wakes you from sleep, it is present every second of every day, affects your loved ones and robs you of the joy of life. Maybe TP's death was accidental. Maybe it wasn't. I can assure you that anyone that has dealt with this issue for a period of time has considered all means of making it stop.
Years ago, I co-founded a chronic pain support group. We built it up to around 50 members who would attend our weekly meetings in a classroom at the local church.
Chronic pain people learn how to medicate ... usually with a combination of alcohol and opiate drugs. The combination really works to knock the pain down. The problem is that we build up a tolerance to these drugs (including alcohol) and need ever increasing doses to get the desired effects.
I had a lot of conversations with my own neurosurgeon about pain meds and learned that they can actually cause pain. He encouraged me to attempt to get the members to reduce their drug intake ... with the approval of their doctors of course.
One of the first things we would do was to interview the new member of the group. They told us about what led to their chronic pain situation, what drugs they were taking ... and then the big question: Are you thinking about suicide? About half of the new members would admit that they were on the edge of ending their lives and that we were their last resort. The difference now was that they were in a large group of people who at one time had the very same strain of thought.
At the new member's very first meeting, we would encourage them to start breaking their pain meds in half and only take half doses until the next meeting. At the next meeting we encouraged them to break the meds in half again. Slowly, they were weaned off of the drugs ... at which time, their pain was reduced as well as their depression and suicidal compulsions. Those suffering from chronic pain can find a lot of relief just by sharing with others similarly afflicted.
Like my neurosurgeon would say ... "happiness is not having pain."
"If you happen to know anyone in my province who may be at risk, the Canadian government is offering Fentanyl Naloxone antidote kits. Free, and no questions asked. Link below. Save a life, before it becomes a memory!"
This is what we need more of in the US.. And a lot more. incarceration and punitive measures do not address the underlying issues of why do people use drugs to feel better or drink for that matter . Not to mention what would happen were it to be made legal and controlled by the state , money put into rehab and education and maintenance of addicts instead of incarceration --what incentive would organized crime have to be involved ? The illicit trafficking brings in billions of dollars a month as reported back when Escobar was in business. Drugs are very very big business and this is treated just like a business enterprise with many behind the scenes profiting. The Taliban funds their activities with poppy cultivation and has become If I recall correctly #2 in worlds production.
The main point is that Petty wasn't using his meds recreationally — he was simply doing his best to cope with a crippling injury that was only getting worse, all in order to live up to his touring commitments.
At his level of fame, he wouldn't have needed to doctor shop - they had a doctor with them on the tour.
It's not uncommon for severe chronic pain to be managed with a long-acting opioid dosage and another shorter-acting, oral opioid for breakthrough pain. Petty suffered from a broken hip and a damaged knee. However, fentanyl and oxycodone are generally not advised for long term use with depression and anxiety drugs (Citalopram (Celexa) is used to treat depression. Alprazolam (Xanax) is a drug that is used for treating anxiety. They are often prescribed in tandem, as in his case.).
There is no indication he was addicted to anything - in fact between his emphysema and a broken hip, the actual drugs listed aren't particularly alarming - the fentanyl patch is time release specifically to prevent overdosage - but as someone who has taken pain meds for 16 years due to a car accident and destroyed spinal disc, keeping track of what you took when can be a problem, especially if any of the substances make you less than fully alert. The family is astutely, and responsibly, cautioning people that this can tragically occur. This is nothing like Prince illegally scoring oxys from various pharmacies...accidentally taking too much of a prescription drug (or drugs) as the coroner's report says happens every day, which the family points out and is something to be wary of.
I am a former semi pro musician. I was also a heroin addict while I was in my youth, playing guitar with many bands. Everything you can imagine, and some things you can't possibly imagine, I have experienced. The life on the road is a very confusing thing to a young man, and the "extras" that are offered are not resisted. So was the almost inevitable demise of Crazyeddy. Alas, four years in prison got me clean. Pretty fu*k up sh*t, but I always think of the Pro musicians who have succumbed to "the life"
As is so often the case, the big boys on the block with tons of $$$ can have whatever they want from the so called Doctor, with a licence to issue scripts RX.
I have been clean for 3 decades now , and my wife works for the Canadian Mental Health Association. She is a front line worker with the addiction response unit of her organization. The sh*t I here from her every day is astounding. The synthetic Fentanyl is killing so many, and my wife says that many other Designer Drugs are now being laced with Fentanyl and it's become epidemic in our region.
If you happen to know anyone in my province who may be at risk, the Canadian government is offering Fentanyl Naloxone antidote kits. Free, and no questions asked. Link below. Save a life, before it becomes a memory!
I was in the German Health System for over a decade . Far better than ours . 3 years ago on vacation I had to be hospitalized overnight in Finland. Total bill , including ER, room, doctors and medicine was 58 bucks in US $. And that was total no insurance involved .
I think I can put a bit of personal perspective on this overdose issue considering I spent about 10 yrs of my life addicted to opiates. Accidental simply means that he did not intend to take his own life. For the moment discard perspectives that taking this type of drug automatically assumes that there is a potential for dying so why would one do it. Because taking that perspective aligns with the notion that even crossing the street you can lose your life. In other words. Of course people know the potential for calamity. And of course more risk involved in taking opiates than crossing the street. But we dont stop crossing the street because we know there is a chance of being hit.
I digress. First of all let me say that many will begin the opiate regimen for pain and while there is relief from pain the fact of the matter is people many become addicted to opiates because of how readily it buffers one from the pain of living with whatever difficulties they are experiencing in life concerning their state of mind.
A major factor is how opiates can buffer psychic pain and make one feel good, comfortable to the max in your own skin. And of course there are other ways to feel comfortable in ones skin. Healthy , non addictive ways .. actually, some people choose healthy and addictive. lol. And to be clear-- this is not all to say that there are many people that are in extremely painful medical situations that need to take opiate medication and may need to take it for their entire life and thank the mother earth drug for the relief it offers.
My purpose here is to bring to the fore what is not often discussed are the reasons why people take opiates other than MEDICAL issues per se. What I am primarily referring to is the alleviation of psychic or mental pain.
Ability to alleviate depression, anxiety and more of which my clinical training vocabulary fails me now in remembering more because I have been retired for about 5 yrs now.
At any rate--I would also suggest that considering the assortment of opiates in his system he was really pushing his mojo on that one.
Perhaps one reason I am alive today is because I really was careful about quality and quantity. And the insidiousness of the Fentanyl booster was essentially not out there back in my day . Th
There was a bit of "bathtub" Fentanyl in the late 80's right about when I was getting clean which created the case of the frozen addict. Google it. These days I would definitely not want to be out there.. The use of Fentanyl added to street smack is just BEGGING for trouble. The dosage amount can not be controlled at this level of dealership. It would need to be strictly pharmaceutical and even then Fentanyl is 50 to 100 more times potent than morphine.. Terminal cancer patients only need apply.
So, here it is. OD's and death like no other time in our country . I got a figure just the other day that noted 1 out of 4 or 5 people are using in those states most affected. Consider the factors of why are so many people in pain and are using. That is a socialogical discussion pertaining to the failure to address society's true needs. Most opiates deaths are not suicides. Why would you want to kill yourself when you know you are going to be feeling no pain however temporary that relief is? Of course there is a massive trade off here for that relief. Addiction. And when and if one gets clean it wont be an easy road for awhile and it essentially cant be done without support.
Does anybody here no how many US citizens are killed by medical error in this country every year? You might be surprised to know that in this unhappy statistic, we're NUMBER 1! With more than 250,000 preventable deaths by error per year. Far more than those who OD and die from illicit drugs in the US BTW.
Scientists and sociologists have been tabulating these numbers for decades. There is no doubt about this. If anything, the numbers are underreported due to potential legal liability. The US healthcare system is (by the hard data) far worse than just about any other wealthy country on earth and we have by far and away the most costly care-- but the quality just isn't there and it continues to FALL bearly every year while prices are, by global standards, simply insane and unjustifiable.
Tom Petty was taking a lot of medications-- this made him especially vulnerable to toxic drug interactions.
Even wealthy rock stars aren't safe in a system like ours. And you can take that to the bank.
I like the sharing, it puts a human face on things, a human face on the text one reads.
Helps people with perspective. That is, in the final analysis, IMO and IME... fundamentally important to all these threads. It leads to less nasty projected/reactionary behavior.
Unfortunately ... there were two threads on this same topic. My latest remarks were in response to what hifiman had posted last. Read the last few entries and you'll see.
Who was judgmental about Tom Petty? The posts I read were sympathetic, and some (mine) explained how it could happen to me; I lose count of the pills but I don't lose count of the pain; if I accidentally take too many; " sayonara", over and out.
The point I was making in sharing my experiences was that being judgmental about Petty's overdose was essentially uniformed as no one knew what Petty was going through, their own experiences not withstanding. A little catharsis goes a long way ... so boys, stop your sniping.
We all have our stories, trials, tribulations, tales of pain or loss. Just FYI Mine: Both hips at 49 (bone on bone pre surgery), neck twice and rotator cuff where surgeon exclaimed: muscle looked like spaghetti. Above required 15 yrs. on and off of Vicodin or Oxy. I know your pain. . But, WHY are we sharing this here?? That's what Face Book is for. Nothing past first few comments even relates to Petty's tragic passing. Come here for the solace and intelligent discussions on our hobby. WHERE's the ADMIN for this thread/Blog????
Yes we will O-10 , on the mercy of the Lord . My mind is not his, but I'll bet he will be pleased with your unending battle against the American original sin , racism .
I hear you, O10 , At +7yrs to you on most days my hands and arms on on fire , good thing the guy who is stabbing a butcher knife in my neck and shoulders diverts my attention .
God bless all who suffer till we get to the "sweet bye and bye" .
When they told me I had arthritis at 45, I thought it was a joke, but at 76, I know it ain't no joke; more pain than I care to discuss.
I was told to stay away from the "heavy duty" prescribed pain killers, and so far I am, but I lose track of how many of the "over the counter" pain pills I take; consequently, accidental overdose is possible, but what difference does it make?
I had a cousin a little older than me who lived his life to the max from the day I met him (from the time I was aware of life) until he could no longer enjoy his good life of wine women (numerous), and song.
He got sick, and I didn't know the details of his illness, but I visited him in the hospital, and since we knew one another so well that we almost communicated telepathically, there was little conversation.
I looked at him, and my eyes said, "please don't leave me". He looked down at the floor and said; "You're born, you live and you die".
That's when tears came into my eyes, because I knew he would not be around much longer; there was no way he could stand life as an old man who could no longer enjoy the company of attractive ladies, and once he saw the hand writing on the wall, he had made up his mind to ease on down the road to whatever is next.
I left the hospital with tears streaming down my face; two weeks later he was dead.
This was my response to another post here on this topic.
I am 60 years old.
I have had spinal fusion from T8 to S2 (shoulder blades down to the butt crack, 10 surgeries over a 7 year period) and have had both knees replaced (a year ago).
Leading up to the surgeries were 10 years of incorrect diagnoses, until I came across the surgeons who operated on Gloria Estefan (broken vetebra from a bus accident in 1990), and I received my first proper diagnosis, which led to my first spine fusion surgery.
Twelve years ago, one of the surgical implants broke and pierced my spinal cord and I was hospitalized on and off over a six month period with bacterial meningitis.
For that 7 year surgery period I was on morphine, as the level of pain at times could be extreme. I could not take fentanyl, as it is usually delivered via patch and I am allergic to latex and most surgical adhesives.
If you were to meet me, you would not pick up on any of this, as the only possible give away is that I look fatter than I really am (huge actually), as some of my ribs on the left side were removed (bone is used to augment spine fusion) and my left side protrudes out about 10 inches.
I have taught myself how to walk, speak, and write again. I can not sleep in a bed. Every day involves a conversation with myself about how I am going to put one more day in the record books.
I tell my story for only one reason ... what my journey has taught me is to never comment or speculate about the pain that anyone feels, because I don't know what pain level he or she may be at and what their coping skills are ... regardless of position or wealth.
Without coming off as preachy, Tom Petty deserves that consideration, as well. So accidental or not, better off or not, it is a conversation that he has with his maker.
I feel for his family and friends and all those dependent on him, because it has most likely not been a fun journey. Just as I feel for my own circle, because it has not been fun.
"It’s tough to beat opioids for severe pain." ......stated in a prior post. Actually, opioids alone are frequently only mediocre in treating many types of pain and in fact, in larger dosages, can make the pain actually worse. Using non-opioid medications ( acetaminophen, NSAIDS, Gabapentin like agents) and physical therapy when appropriate, along with some opioids, is currently the best method to achieve reasonable, safe pain relief.
“ Speedball rang the night clerk”..... give that another spin for deeper meaning... wow do I miss him RIP Tom i have a quarter million dollar foot and have had a few rounds of surgery needing some pain meds - I still have 3 left, long expired but there so I understand the desire to get off them ASAP..... but
The reason they label the Manner of death as "accidental " because it could be a Homicide or Suicide , which would change the "Manner of Death". Was it self induced? Did the Party intentional know they were over medicating? Did someone assist the Party or administer the drugs with intensions of overdosing the Party So the manner of Death could reasonably change from "accidental ", to Suicide or/and Homicide
I'm same age as you dad .Your post is very wise . As you age out often the greatest gift you can give your loved ones is allowing yourself to be a "burden " on your way out .
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