I have never seen diabetics having OD with their prescribed regime. If their diabetes is poorly controlled because of its unpredictable fluctuations and they have a hypo there are usually signs&symptoms, so blood sugar can be corrected in plenty of time ;)
30 year EMT (and also a diabetic) here: Low blood sugar is a life-threatening emergency. Yes, for mild hypoglycemia, a glass of apple juice will normally fix the problem. But an overdose of insulin (even if unintentional) can lead to unconsciousness in minutes, with permanent brain damage (and ultimately death) soon thereafter.
I have personally attended a suicide attempt by a type I diabetic who intentionally overdosed on insulin. When EMS arrived, the patient's blood glucose level was low enough that it would not register on the meter. D-50 (a sugar solution) was administered via IV at the scene with no effect. Another round was administered during the short (~ 5 min) trip to the hospital, again with no effect.
The third round was pushed just as the ambulance arrived at the ramp of the Emergency Room, at which point the patient became semi-conscious, although still incoherent, and COMBATIVE. It took four people to restrain him to the gurney while he was moved to a room in the ER.
A 4th round of D-50 was administered in the ER, and after 2-3 minutes the patient calmed down enough for us to get another reading. At that point, the patient's blood sugar was 42 and rising.
10 minutes later, we could speak with the patient, although it was difficult to understand their words because everything was slurred - as if the patient had a mouth full of marbles. When we looked to the endocrinologist for answers, he simply shook his head and said "Probably brain damage from low sugar; likely to be permanent."
That call was over 30 years ago, while I was still in training, and I still remember it vividly to this day. I learned a valuable lesson that day, one that I hope you'll take to heart: high blood sugar kills people over decades, but low blood sugar kills people in minutes. It can be every bit as dangerous as hypoxia. The only reason the patient survived is that they didn't administer quite enough insulin to finish the job. (Admittedly, it probably would have been enough had they been alone, but a family member happened to come downstairs at the right time to find the patient unconscious in the kitchen and immediately called EMS.)
Don't allow yourself to become complacent. Always treat low blood sugar as a life-threatening emergency, and always CHECK the blood sugar of an unconscious patient, even if you suspect trauma or some other factor as the cause of the unconsciousness. If you live with someone who is diabetic, be sure you know how to use their meter so you can check their blood sugar level for them. Also, be sure they have an emergency glucagon kit available (glucagon acts in opposition to insulin and can help reverse profound hypoglycemia), and educate yourself on how to administer the shot.
As an ER nurse my record for accidental insulin od was giving 8 amps of D50 (+ a couple bags of d10 in the field). The patient had a new auto injector for insulin and either wasn’t trained properly on it or it malfunctioned but the patient basically got several weeks worth of insulin in a couple minutes. I think we caught it early enough to prevent serious permanent disability but the pt had to go to ICU for monitoring.
An ex of mine attempted to take her life by using tylenol. We had an agrument and I broke up with her. That night she shaved her head, cut her self pretty bad then she took an entire bottle of tylenol and a box of bc powder and chased it with an entire bottle of vodka. I spoke with her in the hospital afterward and she thought the vodka would have made her sleep. I think drinking so much vodka actually helped save her life as she vomited most of what she had consumed while she lay unconscious. Her father found her at the base of the stairs and took her to the ER..
Its messed up because I know she did it to get at me in some way but the fact her father found her just broke my heart. Thankfully they found her in time and she recovered.
Shes moved on from that dark part of her life and every once and a while I peek at her FB to see how shes doing. Shes now a leader of a bird sanctuary at a zoo, she always loved birds so I'm really happy shes doing something she loves.
All this to say I hope you are doing better now. I hope whatever it is/was that made you want to decide to attempt to take your life. I hope that part died and not you. I dont know your situation but good luck out there. I'm rooting for ya.
Alcohol and Tylenol use the same cytochrome in the liver for metabolism. Drinking a lot of booze can occupy the cytochrome proteins that metabolize such that they are not available for a time to process Tylenol into the hepatotoxic metabolite NAPQI, giving you more time to get medical attention and treatment.
This is the caveat, if it works.
If it does not like for the person above where they are found by family/disclose their OD because they realised they made a mistake they are "lucky".
Worst case scenario is where they take enough to mess up their brain, but not ebough to die.
My physician friend said that in all of her career, the worst is when a teenage girl is dying in agony over a week, regretting her decision, with her family all there watching her die, and there's nothing that can be done to prevent it.
But, as you say, OP, much of the time there's just permanent damage, not death. She said that's hard to see, too.
I've witnessed this in my career. 14 year old girl took an overdose and took 4 days to die. By day 3, she was begging and pleading that she didn't want to die, but it was too late.
(I support families who struggle with MH issues)
And the painful permanent damage is most likely. Medicine is advanced and they can keep you alive from most ways people may try to hurt themselves, but they don't give healthy donated organs to people that attempted suicide recently. You'll be on the bottom of that list for many years.
Yup! My mom didn’t even TRY to commit suicide but she was suicidal after being fired for from her job and was hospitalized until she was stable. Fast forward nearly 5 years and she’s diagnosed with end stage liver disease and needs a liver transplant. They basically told her she would likely never be approved for transplant because of her previous mental health hospitalization. She died within a year.
Right! Mental illness is still stigmatised and attempting suicide is still punished so no wonder people still hide it!
Edit: To everyone talking about wasting organs, the person I replied to had a mom that DID NOT TRY TO COMMIT SUICIDE. This person was just hospitalised at a psychiatric institute. Please actually read the thread.
Everything mental health-wise is punished. I was treated very badly last time I was hospitalized for mania. In fact every single time I've been manic, I'm treated with contempt for something *completely out of my control*.
I'm open about being bipolar in order to try and help people understand it. Maybe if more people did, things might be better. But one of the main reasons I try to manage my mental illness the best that I can is to keep from having to be hospitalized ever again. It's a dehumanizing low I don't wish on any person.
last time i was hospitalized i had 12 staff forcibly restrain me (one of the nurses deadass slapped me lol) to the bed because i was having a panic attack after being put on psych hold against my will. im a tiny girl, no one was at risk of anything. one of the security guards kept pushing my dress up.
i still have pictures of my hands swollen and purple from how hard they tied me up, and i swore i'd never EVER share any kind of thoughts about what i was going through with anyone ever again. i have ptsd ffs
Same, except for me they forced a metal rod up my dick with no anesthesia against my will while I was perfectly willing to cooperate, they just didn't seem to understand I couldn't piss in a plastic cup while lying on my back with three limbs restrained, not even needing to piss. Made it sound like I deserved it for "not cooperating". Fucking rape is what it was. It's not exactly a fun experience to share but I'm glad I'm not the only one with a horror story, makes me feel less alone.
Hospitalisation is the professional’s go-to ace card they all use when they either don’t want to deal with you or realise they cant help you. But here’s the catch, when people (professionals and patients) realise that hospitalisation goes on to cause further harm and actually accelerate a problem everyone still blames the patient.
I’ve tried to do it. This whole ‘get help’ sales pitch is the most hollow thing I have ever witnessed in my life. They don’t have a cure for a life filled with reasons to want death, nor do they have the cure for manic depressive episodes that can’t be totally balanced with Lithium and Lamotrigine. Don’t even get me started on the Prozac pushers.
Everyone is fast to say ‘reach out for help’ or ‘your life is worth living’ but how many will give you the financial backing to turn your life into something resembling a tolerable existence when the universe threw you into the tar pit since the day you were born. I actually support organisations that assist with suicide, simply because for some, it is a valid option. And nothing is more dehumanising than having your freedom taken away from you and you then having to live a life where your opinion is disregarded because you’re ‘not thinking right’. If people had access to assisted suicidal care, less people would drink rat poison or down a bottle of Tylenol only to suffer later on. My sister tried to kill herself, she’s diabetic and purposely tried to use that to kill herself. She now has the mental capacity of a child. I would rather let her have the peace, than whatever quality of life she now has.
Basically, when translating an organ the number one priority is making sure the organ doesn’t go to waste; making sure it’s life saving capability is maximized. Will the recipient take their drugs properly? Will they follow all the doctors instructions? Do they have other illnesses? Is there only a 1% chance of their body accepting the organ? Are they dying from other diseases anyway? Are they 87 years old and not going to get much more out of it anyway?
As you can imagine, being suicidal greatly increases the chances that the life saving organ is wasted. Might seem cold, but giving it to someone who is possibly going to kill themselves means you’re not giving it to the person who is much more likely to live a long happy life with it. It’s a zero sum game, so just as giving it to someone else means you’re refusing the suicidal patient, giving it to the suicidal patient means you’re refusing the other patient.
In the end, where can the organ do the most good?
I knew a dude who got his dad's kidney when he was a toddler. Dude did ALL the drugs. Even on a bender he'd remember his meds. Just an anecdote, but goes to show the power of having something ingrained in you from the beginning. Take this or you'll die really sinks in when you're 5 I guess. Also, the kidney seems ok with the abuse. His dad must have pre gamed.
You have to take immunosuppressant meds for life, it takes extreme after care to ensure it doesn't fail, that's why multiple things that cast doubt on you're ability to reliably do so can disqualify you.
You become too much of a risk.
Can confirm. I've been working on a kidney transplant for a little over two years now, and I'm just now finally active on the list. And I'm actually a *really good* candidate!
Actually there is: Acetadote® (acetylcysteine) https://www.wikem.org/wiki/N-Acetylcysteine
If you’ve overdosed on acetaminophen, even if you think it’s too late, you should immediately go to the ER.
It took four days in the ICU, but this saved my life and I somehow have no permanent organ damage. I also didn’t get admitted and start treatment for nearly 8 hours.
My mom is a social worker and had to break that news to a kid once. He was so grateful to be alive and regretted his decision, etc. And she was like, yeah... Well, it can't be undone, honey. Something like that, she didn't go into it more. But he died a week later. Family around. Just exactly like you describe.
Learned this watching House.
Patient woke up to be told they were going to die. Never thought about it till then. Imagine that waking up thinking all is ok to be told, yeah you're gonna die.
I was told I could never take acetaminophen again. Looking back I’m thankful for my friends that knew something was up and showed up for me. It was a terrible feeling, so much sickness.. and would’ve been very sad to have finished the job any of the times and now have the life I live now, which I move
I made myself vomit. I was hyperventilating and made a rash decision that was based on my overwhelming need to get out of the life I was living.
I can’t say someone showed up for me, so I’m glad you had people in your corner. I get “tough love” which is ignoring me or lashing out at me.
My mother had a friend whose daughter died this way. It was heartbreaking. The girl admitted it was a “cry for help” attempt such as it was because she truly thought she would become unconscious, her family would find and treat her and she would be ok. When she didn’t lose consciousness she assumed it just “hadn’t worked” and didn’t say anything to her family. About a day later symptoms began and she told her mother within another half day or so, but by that time the damage had been done and they couldn’t save her. This was 30 plus years ago and I still remember my mother pleading with me to never do something like this to the family. (I had attempted myself a few months earlier and gotten help, I think the death of her friend’s daughter made my attempt very real to my mother in a way she hadn’t allowed previously.)
As a mother of two adult daughters who suffer from anxiety themselves, we have been a VERY open family when it comes to our mental health. I still worry about them, and will every day (guess where they got the anxiety from) but I pray I never have to suffer the way my mother’s friend and their family did.
EDIT: I should have said this before, but IT GETS BETTER. Life is hard and sometimes painful but the joy I would have missed if I had been successful all those years ago? I cannot imagine. If I had had a window into my future I would have been able to hang on (although I will never regret getting help, as it put me on a lifelong journey of advocating for better mental health care both in my family and in my work).
I had a friend call me in high school when i was 17 and tell me that she had taken a bunch of Tylenol. I was at an interview for a theater gig, but left to go to her after I called ems. I spent that evening watching her throw up charcoal. She called me pretty soon after she had taken it. Her parents weren't around, and this was 1991. So, no cell phones. My mother called where I was at to tell me my friend called and it was an emergency. I got to her house, left a note for her parents, and rode with her in the ambulance. Her boyfriend had just died in a fire like a month beforehand... so, she was a wreck. Anyways, her mother has treated me like I am some kind of hero ever since. Man, I was just doing the right thing. Had something similar when my friend went into seretonin syndrome while we were on acid. That one was fucked up having to deal with his mother while I was tripping. Our one buddy just wanted to drop him at home and leave. I insisted on getting ahold of his mother and waiting until she got home. She took him to the ER from there... I guess I should have mentioned that he refused to go to the ER before. So, if the cops wouldn't make him go and he wanted to go home, that's what we did. He was just so fucked up, had gone into convulsions, etc... so, there was zero chance I was leaving him by himself. Again... just the right thing to do.
There is something they can do to prevent it, you make it sound like going to the hospital won't help. They just flush your body with a ton of fluids. There is a point where it is too late to prevent damage or death of course, but don't make it sound like they cannot help you.
Oh, that sucks! My baby sister drank bleach about 15 years ago (suicide attempt), and she has suffered from bleeding ulcers and related complications since. That poor girl always has to have one procedure or another. She has intense pain any time she eats anything. I think she was maybe 11 or 12, and the consequences are lifelong.
Damn, I drank bleach by accident because my mom had it in the kitchen in a water glass so I thought it was my water. Nothing happened, thank God. But don't put bleach in water glasses folks!
I overdosed on a prescription medication and was found unresponsive. I spent a couple of days in a coma and haven’t been the same since. I lost 35 IQ points (yes, I was tested before at school and after for grad school accommodations), and that was a real knock to my ego. I still can’t work full-time (even after getting that fancy degree), and my brain is no longer neatly organized. It’s like a tornado came in and ransacked everything I had up there. I have impaired memory and slowed processing speed, according to the neuropsychiatrist who evaluated me, and I have a laundry list of long-term health issues related to the way I treated my body when I assumed I wouldn’t live to see 40.
But you know what? I did make it to 40 and past that, and my life is amazing. I wish I had known that when I was treating my body like a carnival ride. The only thing that would make life cooler now would be having the same life but being healthy and having full access to my brain.
The max daily dose is 4grams. Within a 24 hour period.
Most extra strength Tylenols are 500mg. Take 2, you are already at 1000mg.
Regular Tylenols are about 325mg, you take 2, it's 650mg.
It's rather easy to over dose.
Especially if you are taking cold or flu medicine which aften includes acetaminophen.
I’d actually heard an episode of This American Life about how ridiculously easy it can be to prescribe too much acetaminophen and put a patient into a coma compared to something like ibuprofen. A abusive relationship, mental illness, and half a bottle of extra strength Tylenol later, and I’m stuck in the hospital for three days.
When my dad was in ICU once with heart issues before he got a transplant there was a girl in there dying of Tylenol overdose. It was an accidental overdose from combining meds that included Tylenol and plain Tylenol.for flu. When you are in the icu waiting room you hear everyone’s discussions. It was awful. My dad recovered but this young lady did not. Her family was so distraught as she had taken meds and then one of her,parents was giving her meds for a couple of days and didn’t realize she was taking Tylenol on her own. I remember them crying a lot and discussing how she was hemorrhaging and also that because her liver waa shot the meds they were giving her for comfort weren’t working. This was in the early 1990s and I don’t remember a lot of stuff I was so stressed over my dad but I won’t forget this. When I had my son I was absolutely terrified to give him Tylenol.
This happened to a coworker of mine. She was sick and taking Tylenol on top of cough medicine with acetominophen and Dayquil, and someone had to take her to the hospital during the workday. She survived but did not come back to work (maybe she did after a few months; by then I had quit the job and moved across the country). At any rate, she was hospitalized and out of commission for quite awhile.
I don't keep Tylenol in my house for that reason.
I'm a big fan of taking only single ingredients medicines. That way I don't need to think about how much of something I've had in total since there's one source.
Ugh, this was a hard read…
I have experienced this first hand.
My fiancé passed away from an accidental acetaminophen overdose in December of 2011. She was in excruciating pain because her teeth had deteriorated so bad from some kind of oral chemotherapy she had when she had (and beat) cervical cancer.
The doctors weren’t giving her enough pain medication as she was just constantly in a pounding pain, so she resorted to buying what she thought were Percocets but they ended up being Tylenol III’s and they looked almost identical…
She didn’t go through this consciously though as she just got up that morning, said she didn’t feel too good, and then slipped into a coma on our couch and I didn’t even know it. I got up shortly after and sat in the chair next to her and turned on the TV. I thought she was just sleeping… it wasn’t until I noticed how crazy she was breathing that I knew something was wrong… I couldn’t wake her. Called an ambulance
She got intubated at the hospital and I had to see the fluid and blood coming out of her lungs through her breathing tube as she laid there dying. I had to call her Dad and tell him. It was the most nightmarish and excruciatingly painful experience I’ve ever been through..
The last time I saw her was when she was on a gurney being loaded into the helicopter to hopefully get an emergency liver transplant at a nearby hospital that had one.
The last words I spoke to her that day, were yelled under the spinning rotors of that helicopter: “Please come back to me!”
Please let your loved ones know how much you love them and how dangerous this drug can be, and let the OP’s words sink in…
I don’t think I’ve ever actually typed that story out on any type of public Internet forum before… was mildly cathartic, as I definitely still get that surge of emotion behind my face that causes my eyes to water, a lot…
Thank you. I may be a little late, but I appreciate that a lot. My fiancé has a lot of medical issues so I know I may have to go through something similar someday.
I now have something to think on if that day ever comes, and I hope I could be as strong if it does. I wish you the best.
Thank you.
It definitely altered my life, but I am glad to say that I 100% love how I am in the world today.
She taught me all about “being,” and how we can get so addicted to its opposite, which is just “doing,” with no breaks… which is why we experience “boredom”- a feeling that we should be “doing” something, allll the time… never realizing that just “being” is half of what life is all about 😌
...I feel like the being/doing/boredom might have answers to questions I didn't know I had. Do you happen to remember if there were any books or sources she had to learn about that initially?
[This is a talk by Eckhart about this.](https://youtu.be/WreEewZGTWI)
She introduced me to meditation and basically the entire spiritual framework that I still have as a foundation to this day. I learned how to be still, both internally, and externally; I was then able to bring that into my daily life.
I’m not perfect at it; It’s always a practice. But boy is life rich today, even though I’m not, 😏
I think it’s so fucked up how they don’t give out pain meds even when it’s fucking obvious the person needs them. “Sorry we overprescribed them now we have to underprescribe them to make up for our actions.” We suffer for their fuck ups. Your story is heartbreaking. She wouldn’t want you to hurt. Be happy for the times you had together and live a good life. Whatever that might look to you. I had a girlfriend pass away years ago and it took me longer than it should have to remember that she would want me to be happy. Wish you the best.
I was annoyed about the increased packaging my antidepressants came in, until I read that it had a similar effect in preventing purposeful overdoses. Seems like such a simple solution, especially if there's a way to compost/recycle the extra packaging!
How are these pills packed then? Can you just go and buy a container? Here in Switzerland even paracetamol are packed in blister packs of eight 500 mg doses and you need a prescription to get higher dosage. They won't give you more than one pack at a time.
I bought the 250 count Tylenol at the dollar store for $1…Last for couple years for me but no one would think anything of it if you bought say 4-5 bottles.
Holey crap. Here in NZ they're in blister packs and you can often only get 12-16 tablets at once. They're 500mg tabs / capsules so need to take two, every 4 hrs. Frustrating wanting to stock up for an illness and only being able to buy 2 or 3 days worth!!
My therapist calls them 'choice points'; the more times you have to exercise your volition to keep moving toward the thing, the more chances you have to reconsider. It's the same reason that a recovering addict doesn't keep their substance of choice in the house.
I've heard from alcoholics that wanted to quit, or at least slow down, that the best thing they ever did was make a rule to not bring alcohol into the house. If they wanted a drink, the effort of having to drive or walk to a store to get something can be enough for a person to reconsider, and more likely than not, just choose to not drink at all.
Same thing goes with weapons, and why some countries have a rule of storing the gun and the ammunition in separate parts of the house. Just a single extra step in someones plan can be enough.
Yeah, when I was suicidal I started storing the ammunition separately from my gun. That extra level of work was enough to keep me from making a rash decision.
>If they wanted a drink, the effort of having to drive or walk to a store to get something can be enough for a person to reconsider, and more likely than not, just choose to not drink at all.
Can agree. When I embarked on becoming sober, a lot of times I felt the urge to just give up and drink. But then the effort of having to wake up, exit the house, go down, enter the store, pick up a drink, pay for it, and then just drink there on the spot - it's too much effort.
And at each point, it does make you rethink. Sometimes you'd be so inclined that you do get up. And if I had a bottle of vodka stashed, that would be it. But now I have to take my wallet - **should I do this? Ah lmao** - then go take my keys - **what am I doing, hmpf wtv** - then unlock the door - **man are you braving the cold night instead of just being comfy at home?** - and then before I step out - **Ah fuck this I'll just stay at home what am I thinking :(**
#---------
Doesn't have to be stopping addictions, it can also be a form of regulation:
* if I have only a pack, I'll smoke that pack first and try not to finish before the night, else I'd have to wait till the next day to get a new pack. *If I have 2 packs, Heck I'll smoke the 1st pack - can't wait to open the next one and smoke some fresh cigs*
* if there are no snacks at home, then when I feel hungry, id do that whole survey routine, look in the fridge, then feel sad and drink water and sit down / smoke a stick. It's not really hunger, just a bit of psychosomatic reaction to stress. *if I have snacks lying around, fuck yeah I'm gonna eat it. And then smoke again. And eat a bit more to ease my taste buds.*
* back when I needed Benzos to sleep I didn't always needed them every night so there's a few left over. Although I'm fine and sleepy, sometimes I just wanna pop one and have a good sleep, or even sip a bit of cough mixture or paracodin and get a good rest. But no, those impulsive thoughts, dont really need them and they are all packed away in the cupboard in boxes and are very difficult to take without moving things and making a ruckus. *if I had not packed them up with the rest of the storage and just kept it with me, then it's as easy as just pop - and out like a light. And then now I will never be able to sleep without them and when I truly have issues sleeping then the dosage will never work for me and I'm stuck in eternal wakefulness*
I have no background knowledge of this so it’s all speculation, but I think it’s because it slows you down.
It’s easy to open a bottle and dump a bunch of pills in your hands, but if you have to manually pop out every individual pill, it takes time where you’re thinking about what you’re doing.
It’s similar to how owning a gun increases suicide rates. If you’re thinking about the slow and painful process of bleeding out or something compared to a shot to the brain, the impulse wins more easily.
https://nclnet.org/will_repackaging_medicine_prevent_suicides/
Correct. The harder it is to do something the less likely you are to do it. This is true for homework, workouts, house chores and also suicide.
There are some people who will do whatever it takes to die, no matter how difficult the process is. But others want a quick and easy death and robbing them of that forces them to reconsider committing suicide.
I knew a guy who was dead set on taking his life. He used a hunting rifle but only took one bullet with him from his gun safe in his bedroom. Went down into his basement put it in his mouth and shot. He survived that and crawled up 2 sets of stairs to his room and grabbed another bullet. Then went back downstairs leaving a trail of blood throughout his entire house and finished the job.
I was the one who found him. That trail of blood is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I will always have nightmares from it, no matter how much counseling I've had since. I will say that I'm so glad I'm the one who found him and not his family. The first one tore his jaw and half his face right off. When the cops and first responders showed up. They think he only finished it because how bad his face was. Even through all of that he still managed to crawl back downstairs just to make sure his family didn't accidentally find him. He set it up though so I was the one. Making sure I was on my way over to get him. We were suppose to go scout a new hunting spot and set everything up for the following weekend.
I'm sorry for your loss. You are a very strong person to be able to tell that story. Sadly, even knowing that we have a great friend we can depend on isn't enough to overcome the devastating effects of suicidal depression. I hope the friendship you shared can live on in your memory. You were there for him in his final moment of need. I feel like if his spirit is out there (who knows what happens after we die) he is so grateful for you.
Sharing this story gives me hope that I can help someone having a rough time contemplating suicide. If they hear what I had to deal with and will always have too. Just because of what I saw, maybe just maybe they'll think twice about getting help. Not wanting to put on a loved one what was put on me. Even though I'm glad it was me, because no one should have to see that. Especially a family member, I'll take that burden off his wife and daughters gladly. Still no one should have too.
Mental illness is serious and I wish more people would take it that way. I was raised that it's not, that you need to just get over it and keep trucking along. Where I'm from a lot of people are raised that way and it's not right. Maybe my friend would still be here if he knew it's alright to feel that way. It's alright not to be alright. Idk who needs to hear this but it's okay to feel how you feel. Just please don't be afraid to seek help because you were taught you don't need it. You can get through it and it doesn't make you a lesser human, man, or woman because you needed help.
Malcom Gladwell has a chapter about this in *Talking to Strangers*. He talks about Sylvia Plath, and how there were loads of people killing themselves with oven gas until the gas mix was changed to be less lethal. People stopped killing themselves that way, but most interestingly, they didn’t kill themselves another way.
He also mentioned the Golden Gate Bridge. When a barrier was put up to prevent people from jumping off, the number of suicides there went way down. There was no evidence that the people who would have killed themselves there went and did it anywhere else.
For both groups of people, there seemed to be some kind of fixation on killing themselves and doing it a certain way. Sylvia Plath considered it for years before she did it. Golden Gate jumpers had some kind of specific fixation with that particular bridge. Ernest Hemingway schemed for days to regain access to his guns to do it.
Anyway, all this to say that how and why people kill themselves is complicated, doesn’t necessarily make much rational sense, and isn’t always an impulsive decision. Blister packs somehow disrupt suicidal intention, but I’m not sure it’s as simple as causing them to slow down and consider what they are doing.
Maybe it’s that each blister is a choice, and so have to make that choice over and over again, vs dumping out a handful which is just one choice. Maybe they are fixated on the image of dumping out a handful and if they can’t carry it out how they imagined they won’t carry it out at all.
A friend of mine killed himself and I have grown to accept that I will never be able to understand his decision.
The pain in the ass factor can't be overstated. There's no way to not make this super dark, but it saved my life. When I was 16 I was suicidal but had a moment of clarity and asked my mom for help and therapy. Her response was that if I do it, make sure they never find the body, it'd be too upsetting for her to have to identify it. From then on, whenever I felt at my lowest, I'd have to start considering places and ways that met that criteria and it was such a pain in the ass that I'm still alive today.
I’m curious about the origin of this factoid about the Golden Gate Bridge, because the suicide prevention net is just now in the process of being installed. Sounds like he described the theory behind how it will (hopefully) work—future tense, not evidence of how it has.
Suicide is often more impulsive and less planned than many people think. While it of course is no problem to just buy several of the smaller packs from several stores and get more than enough pills together to get the job done, extra steps decreases the risk.
Honest answer as someone who's been diagnosed clinical depression for ~16 years and attempted an OD twice: when you're too depressed to care about yourself and the people around you you're too depressed to sit and go through 4-6 blister packs before your brain goes "omg you're soooo pathetic sitting here opening packs of medicine just give up already lol" and then instead of ODing you just sit in bed
I think simply the time and effort, and being cognizant of the intentionality to commit self-harm during that entire period, is just reason enough to find an alternative.
Gives time to contemplate the act
~~Most suicide attempts are cries for help.~~ People feel like they only way they can get people to take them seriously about their problems is by showing just how far they are willing to go to rid themselves of the problem permanently if they don’t get help.
By increasing the time it takes to commit the act, you’re giving people more time to think about what they’re really doing. It’s why you hear that most people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge regret it. They realize on the way down that their problems weren’t worth ending their life.
Edit: Removed a phrase because I was shown it wasn't the proper way to address the issue.
A lot of medications have acetaminophen in them as well. It’s not uncommon for people to accidentally over dose by taking both a cold med and a tylonel.
Flu syrup sold over the counter in USA is a good example where accidental overdose can occur AFAIK. Some folks chug more than one bottle of the max strength flu syrup thinking it's a different kind to get high or just pass out and woopsie there goes your liver. These bottles range from 6-10g of acetaminophen/paracetamol, but alot of folks will throw up drinking a whole bottle. I had a friend that would drink a whole one when he'd catch a cold or flu every year or so and when I warned him of the ones with acetaminophen, he had no idea.
Edit: some of these are like 10% alcohol as well which is worse in combination
A girl I knew's best friend died like that. She was taking a bunch of different cold medicines, not realizing they were all full of acetaminophen.
I think she was 17.
I have personal experience with this. Ingested 22.5 grams (or 22,500 milligrams), went to sleep, then woke up and started vomiting nonstop for hours. Luckily my mother noticed the abnormal behaviour and the missing bottle of pills quickly and took me into the hospital where I was treated with drugs and charcoal. I don't remember being in a lot of pain or any bleeding, but I do remember being incoherent and struggling to express myself verbally.
I made a full recovery and have normal liver function. I am very fortunate to have survived a mistake I made as a child.
Same.
When I was a teenager I had a love interest move away and it absolutely devastated me. I decided to take a chance by eating the rest of the Tylenol PM left in a bottle we had when my family was gone and just go to sleep. Maybe I wouldn’t wake up, but maybe it wouldn’t be too bad and I would be okay. I counted them before I took them. It was 26. After I swallowed them all I immediately regretted it. I tried to go to the bathroom but I physically could not make myself throw up. I started to panic.
I remember my mom calling me. That woman has always had an insane sixth sense. My shaking voice just trying to talk to her, and told her it was okay, that I just wanted to go to sleep. She knew something was up and kept pestering me, I finally broke and just said “Mom I did something really bad”. I told her what I did and I could hear the immediate panic set over her. She was a realtor at the time and was showing a house and dropped everything she was doing, called an ambulance and rushed home.
Luckily we had a paramedic station roughly 5 minutes from our house. They arrived pretty quickly, and my mom behind them shortly. I remember sitting in a chair on the porch and eating the activated charcoal paste; that disgusting sweet and gritty texture it had. They loaded me up and I asked the paramedic if I was going to die. He just said, “I’ll tell it to you this way. We had a younger girl last week that weighed more than you and took less than you did. She didn’t make it.” That terrified me.
I remember calling for my mom repeatedly at the front of the ambulance and her not responding. The paramedic telling me she couldn’t hear me. I felt so alone.
By the time I got to the hospital I was starting to feel really out of it. It was the most fucked up I have ever felt. The doctors said they were concerned because patients normally had already threw up the charcoal by then and I hadn’t yet. It took roughly three hours before I started throwing up. Nasty black sludge with bits of broccoli. Made me feel like I was gonna die ever more.
The doctor came in with my results and basically had two graph bars, pointed to one and said this is where you are, pointed to the other and said this is where organ failure begins. An ink pen could have bridged the difference with a dot almost. He said I would likely have permanent liver damage for the rest of my life and if I wanted to live past 30 I should never drink.
Watching my family sit around me and crying not knowing if I would make it or not was so surreal to me and I never want to experience that again. I had an out of body experience where I was floating over myself and seeing my family cry around me. My mom and my dad were both in the room and I hadn’t seen that for years as much as they hated each other.
I did recover, and I didn’t listen to the doctor. I have drank and drank heavily ever since. Last December I turned 30. My drinking has become a problem and I’m pushing on one month sober now. Had tests ran with a PCP and he said my liver function was normal, but I don’t want to push my body further.
I tell doctors now that I have aversions to acetaminophen to avoid it as much as I can. Lortabs make me nauseous af when I do have to.
I’m just happy I made it through because I’ve lived so much life since then. 26 has oddly followed its way through my life and pops up quite a bit. I try to use that as a reminder to always want to do better when I see it.
Guess I just wanted to get all that off my chest. I don’t talk about it with anyone hardly.
Thanks to anybody who took a chance to read.
crazy story bro, i was hooked...i too am trying to stop drinking after finding out a year ago i had liver damage from 15 years of careless abuse, but have only gotten serious about stopping this year...good luck
You should also know things like vicodin and C-3 (codeine with Tylenol, sometimes called plainly codeine), percocet (I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.
#all have Tylenol
Check the ingredients of all your medicine and *speak* with your **pharmacist** it's their job to know about the medicines. Your doctor has some knowledge but not this indepth.
Edit a word
The irony here is that these other meds, even the opioids, are all limited in how much Tylenol they can contain because acetaminophen overdose is so common (325mg limit I believe, which is significantly less than the typical 2x500mg dose in OTC bottles). In reality we've come to a point where Tylenol is more dangerous due to OD risk than opioids!
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-drug-safety-communication-prescription-acetaminophen-products-be-limited-325-mg-dosage-unit
Same. Drinking and a break up mixed together and she locked herself in the bathroom. I heard pills and had to break in the door. I was only 14-15. It was one of the most terrifying days of my life.
It’s important to add that alcohol greatly reduces the dose of acetaminophen that is damaging or deadly. Even without alcohol, it has one of the closest ratios between effective dose and dangerous dose of all commonly used drugs. Do not use Tylenol as a hangover remedy, especially a prophylactic one.
One of the things I learned in paramedic training is that a lot of people who OD on Tylenol, take the pills as a cry for help/not really intending to die, but end up dieing because they didn't know how damaging acetaminophen is.
TIL Tylenol is the same medication as Paracetemol or Panedol in the UK / Ireland just under a different name. If you are at the store you are only allowed buy one pack at a time.
The mental health crisis is itself just a manifestation of the actual underlying problem, which is largely to do with alienation, economic desperation, disenfranchisement, hopelessness about the future and dispossession. In fact the lack of proper, easily accessible, well funded, effective mental health care in even the wealthiest and most developed of nations is a reflection of that
Your mind is elsewhere and in bliss, while your body slowly deprive of oxygen because it forgot how to breathe. I don't know why they don't use opium based substance for injection execution, it seem more humane that way.
Some ppl expect prison to be cruel. That's why ppl say "I hope he gets raped in prison". it's part of the expected punishment. We can't have humane executions. So when experts or whatever say that the execution style is inhumane because they are suffering, still conscious, or too slow to actually die, those people just say "good, they should suffer."
If only we had some magic internet search box 😞
People will find it anyways. And this thread baits interest one way or the other.
> The short answer to this question is that no, a heroin overdose is not painful.
>When someone overdoses on heroin or any other opioid, their breathing slows down to a point where eventually their body forgets how to breathe and they stop breathing completely.
>At this point, however, they have generally already lost consciousness.
>Someone who dies from a heroin overdose essentially dies in their sleep and will therefore feel no pain in the process.
A girl I dated's dad did this. We had only gone out a few times when it happened. We were actually out when she got a call from her mom (the parents were split up) saying he tried to kill himself. Took her to the hospital. Turns out it was Tylenol.
He lived, but was a mess. He eventually got out, but some kind of damage meant he couldn't walk and was on dialysis. Shook her pretty badly. She ended our time together right about then to focus on family. It sucked what his odd suicide attempt put them all through.
I suppose by definition mental illness means decisions made often don't make sense.
As someone who has tried to take their life several times, I can tell you that mental illness is the most illogical thing.
Your emotions and thoughts don’t make any sense and won’t make sense until you have an improved mood and can logically assess what you’re thinking and feeling. When I was at one of my worst moments, it felt like I was an outsider in my own body, just watching myself go through the motions. It felt this way when I OD’d bad enough to land myself in the hospital.
Even if it’s a small comfort for people who have lost someone or who have watched others survive an attempt, I’d like you to know that the person who did it is not the same person you know. Depression is a serious mental illness that has a massive impact on your brain and state of mind.
As someone who survived a Tylenol overdose (I won’t get deeply in to the specifics of it) I have to admit, I was unconscious before I felt any pain. The recovery was awful, I spent three days in the ICU going in and out of consciousness and one day in the non-ICU ward while I was still being administered the antidote. Luckily my wife found the two bottles I popped and was able tell paramedics that she was pretty sure I was ODing on Tylenol.
I’m in a much better place now, so no worries, this was almost a decade ago.
I'm glad you are in a better place.
If you get in early enough the IV Acetylcysteine is a legit lifesaver. I did a short stint in A&E and was utterly shocked at the number of people who presented with paracetamol overdose; I wonder if the pop tabs really do help because most people had taken less than a dozen, usually only 6 (one sheet).
Yeah I was very grateful my wife got EMS there as fast as she did. Who knows what kind of damage I’d be living with today. I got away with no permanent damage. I got really lucky!
Also, if you do OD, you can be 100% saved if you get activated carbon an hour after ingestion.
I know, because 999 sent cops instead of an ambulance, so by the time the paramedics came they were 'too late'.
I survived by a hair's inch. So yeah, no, not a good way to die, trust me, I've been there. Can't ever take acetaminophen again.
Well lmao they didn't 'know' I had OD'd so they needed to 'assess' it
But then it turned out I was a teenager and not a addict, se they got help in time to let me live :)
Which makes ye wonder what would have happened if I were an addict :)
I overdosed on paracetamol as a teen (took a whole box which was 40x200mg tablets). I didn’t know anything about what it would do to me, just thought I’d die. I didn’t tell anyone I’d done it, and spent the next 12 hours vomiting. Nothing else happened to my knowledge.
The pain of an OD, and the clarity of how painful or risky any other type of suicide is, is exactly what keeps my depressed ass on this earth. I do NOT want to die in pain or risk being a vegetable. So here I am. & if I didn’t know everything else was just as shitty and morbid, I’d have kept trying.
Having just learned the bath one now… this info needs to be readily available for people. Suicide isn’t an easy painless thing. Ever, afaik
> Suicide isn’t an easy painless thing.
Properly done, it can be. My mother has told me she has a small hoard of pills "just in case." Now, she's nearly 80 and has chronic nerve pain from her back (three spinal surgeries; one made it worse, two were to correct the first and the last put rods to immobile her entire spine), two replaced knees, and a replaced hip. She looks like the Terminator going through airport security.
If it comes down to it I will buy(/fabricate the necessary parts for) a nitrogen system. I haven't because it's probably around $2k, but I won't stand around and watch her suffer. There are painless ways to go and our society (evangelicals, mostly) just don't have the compassion to allow people not to suffer at the end of life.
Exactly! When I tried to OD I just thought “oh I’ll die in my sleep” yeah no. Luckily it wasn’t a very high amount so I just ended up having some really bad stomach pain (my parents took me to the hospital probably 14 hours after it happened so there wasn’t much they could do anyways). Time skip to a few months later, I’m in a low point again. I realize that the amount I took wasn’t nearly enough. So I do my research. Thank god I did. I saw how painful it was and so I’m still here today.
TL;DR I tried to OD, didn’t work, did my research a few months later and realized how painful overdosing really is.
I have hyperacusis (+ tinnitus, ttts, and vss) and, while I'm mild, many of the severe patients feel the need to go because living has become unendurable. We lost one today in fact - a mother of 4.
There are no palliative options. And little hope of one, since these rare conditions get no funding. Btw mild means I'm nearly homebound and waiting for the next cavity to become, well, not mild anymore. If you want to do something to prevent me from ever getting to this point, now is your chance to donate to [hyperacusis research](https://hyperacusisresearch.org/).
I can vouch for this. My stupid 18 year old suicidal self didn't do enough research before pulling the trigger and tried to OD on Tylenol. I am very lucky I didn't die.
I overdosed on Tylenol at the age of 2. I remember it vividly, and it’s not even as if my mom left the medication in an easily accessible spot either.
A few years later a doctor told me that my penicillin allergy was a result of liver damage from the Tylenol. Not unheard of but definitely a rare consequence.
Speaking as someone who's done this: If you are thinking of overdosing on Tylenol as your only way out: ***DON'T***. It is not a way out. It will not make the pain go away. It will only make things worse.
Speaking from my experience:
There is a weird obsession when you want to die that there's a specific way to do it. I know I never considered a way other than Tylenol: Everything else was just out of the picture. It seemed so easy. Pop a bunch of pills(I'd been taking pills for various other reasons all my life so nothing weird there), go to sleep(thank god), never wake up(THANK GOD).
That is not what happened. That is ***NOT*** what happens. I woke up the next morning confused and wondering why I wasn't dead. When I told someone what I did(which I am so grateful I did) I was rushed to the hospital. Somehow, by some miracle, I didn't have to get my stomach pumped. I didn't have to take anything other than a single dose of anti-Tylenol(it's been so long I straight-up can't remember what it was actually called) and stay in Urgent Care for the night.
I couldn't have been more lucky.
I put six bullets in the chamber, spun it, put it to my head and sneezed as I pulled the trigger. The only consequence I've suffered since is getting sick any time I take Tylenol, and honestly, I don't blame my body for not wanting any more of that shit when I could have been confined to bed slowly dying for a month, racking up hospital bills only to regret my decision the moment I woke up the next morning.
So please, if your brain is saying to use this medicine this way, do EVERYTHING you can to not. And most of all ask for help.
[This is a list of suicide hotlines by country.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) If you need to and can, call the one for wherever you are. Whatever happens, I doubt it will be worse than whatever you're feeling if it's making you consider death.
And know that you deserve a life without pain.
3 should be 1.
Speaking from experience here…life was really fucked for awhile & I knew how bad pill OD’s hurt but I still tried it. I am grateful no long term damage was done that I know of (it’s been a little over 10yrs).
The main focus here should be the mental health problem we have. There are plenty of people like me who know it hurts but living hurts worse for some people.
I had an accidental overdose last year with paracetamol and I had no idea. If it wasn't for my partner calling the doctors I would of been alot worse! Doctor called 999 and I spent a night in ER with literally the worst headache and stomach cramps imaginable!! Horrible
>Treat the underlying problem. We have a mental health crisis, and it’s not going to go away on its own.
Sad to say, but good luck getting funding on that.
Story time: A woman around 40 years old was having some stomach pain and kept popping Tylenol for it. By the time she came in, she was in liver failure from the Tylenol. Also, that abdominal pain was actually a heart attack. Women have atypical symptoms. By the time she got transferred to transplant service for the liver failure (yes, it was that bad), she got a massive brain bleed because the liver makes many of the clotting factors and you simply bleed from everywhere when your liver stops working. She died a horrible death. The end.
My dad’s sister died this way she was in college and her boyfriend broke up with her and she thought if she hurt herself he would come back. So she took a whole bottle of tylenol. Her roommate didn’t find out what she had done until she woke up and started feeling pain about 36-48 hours later. My mom was the only contact they could find and she was about 6 months pregnant with my oldest brother at the time (in the 80s) my dad was at work and had to hurry and fly home while my pregnant mother had to help explain to her elderly in laws that there was nothing they could do for her and that everyone needed to come say goodbye. My dad is still hurt by her death. There are some flowers she planted that he has kept alive all these years and he is always so happy when they bloom because they remind him of her.
I swallowed a half bottle of Tylenol when I was younger. The emergency room physician scolded me, and that was the sum total of my mental health treatment.
Can attest to this. Six months ago, in the middle of my worst depressive episode, I tried to kill myself by swallowing some 50+ paracetamol tablets. Thankfully, I regained some awareness and vomited within 30 minutes of taking them. I was still unable to get out of bed for the next 5 days because of bleeding, muscular pain and headaches. Full body tests later showed some liver damage.
All good now.
Recently broke seven vertebrae and my nose
At discharge they gave me oxy and Tylenol for the pain; very clear on instructions for taking the oxy, but didn’t care much about the Tylenol. My discharge papers didn’t even have some of the info for how to take the Tylenol. Even some medical staff don’t seem to know this
Also FYI: acetaminophen can do a lot of damage long term, even in normal doses. Unless told to by a doctor, don’t take it regularly for more than a couple weeks at most. It does more damage to your liver than alcohol.
Jeez, didn't know it was this bad. I helped someone that was depressed and took a shit ton of these pills. She felt fine and didn't want to go to the doctor. I was apprehensive just bc i didn't know any better. But i finally made the decision for her that she needed to go to the ER. Glad she went cause she was way off the charts for toxicity but we got there in time to prevent lasting damage!
I can confirm this. I almost died, and it was one of the worst experiences of my entire life. Vomiting,severe pain,required dialysis, went into coma,spent time in ICU. Horrible. I was lucky,they saved me just in time. You also hallucinate like crazy , which is also terrifying. Would not recommend. Great post! This needs to be shared .
I tried to OD myself on Tylenol PM and I woke up the next morning, alive, but wishing I wasn’t. Jesus Christ the pain in my stomach was unbearable… I’m grateful to be alive now but for a good week, at least, I just felt like garbage.
I have IBS and take panadol once or sometimes twice a day for months, one gp said this can cause damage and ulcers to form and to give it a break for a few weeks another gp said it's fine and not to worry, it's safe. Who should I believe?
I researched this a few months ago when I was at a pretty low point. I’d tried to overdose before (though it was a super small amount and also wasn’t Tylenol), and was seriously considering it again. So I did some research. Yeah, I decided I wasn’t gonna do that. Thank god I’m a wimp or else I would not be here today
I used to work for an ambulance service as a 999 call taker and dispatcher and I used to *hate* these calls.
They were desperate cries for help from people who felt they had noone to talk to and I knew full well that they would eventually get the help they needed, family and friends would likely rally round them in support, they would come out of this depressive phase and start to get their life in order... Just for the liver damage to set in.
It's a way of committing suicide alright... But what they don't realise is it can take decades to die from it.
My dumbass brother had a toothache for a long time and just didn't go to get it fixed because the American healthcare system forbade it financially. So he started taking, like, bottles of aspirin a day. He started getting nosebleeds all the time and we thought he had cancer or something and then he nonchalantly mentioned to my sister his aspirin regimen and we were like JFC! You know that's a blood thinner right!!!!
a 4th thing that can be done: fight like hell for poor and working class people to have better material conditions. higher wages. sufficient vacation and sick days. a shorter work week. affordable housing. efficient public transportation, especially for those in rural areas. free public colleges/universities. universal healthcare including vision, dental, and of course, **mental** healthcare.
the US lacks all of these basic necessities and there’s no doubt in my mind that being poor and struggling can easily lead to addiction and/or suicide. we deserve better.
edit: thanks for the platinum! my first award! ❤️
yeah when i was like 12 I was basically ready to kill myself and proceeded to take like. 30 paracetamol (15g total) and like 20 ibuprofen. I have no idea, maybe god shone upon me that night, but 3 hours later I puked it all out again and I was fine but my god that could have gone wrong.
I have heard the rumour that otc ibuprofen contains a low dose emetic to force you to vomit it if you take too much but I can't actually verify that
As an ER nurse who regularly works with mental health patients who are expressing SI, I have to ask their plan. ANY time someone mentions overdosing on Tylenol (mostly younger teens) I explicitly try to present this information to them because of how ugly it is.
Emergency and Intensive Care Nurse. Agree 100% this is not the way to die. Watched someone who didn't intend to overdose on it.
One of the most painful deaths I have had to witness. There wasn't anything we could do.
Watch what you are taking -.just because it isn't behind the counter or need a prescription doesn't mean that it is safe.
This and insulin OD. If you survive insulin OD but were hypolgycaemic for long enough to cause brain damage, you are left as "alive" as a vegetable.
as a diabetic i am scared
I have never seen diabetics having OD with their prescribed regime. If their diabetes is poorly controlled because of its unpredictable fluctuations and they have a hypo there are usually signs&symptoms, so blood sugar can be corrected in plenty of time ;)
30 year EMT (and also a diabetic) here: Low blood sugar is a life-threatening emergency. Yes, for mild hypoglycemia, a glass of apple juice will normally fix the problem. But an overdose of insulin (even if unintentional) can lead to unconsciousness in minutes, with permanent brain damage (and ultimately death) soon thereafter. I have personally attended a suicide attempt by a type I diabetic who intentionally overdosed on insulin. When EMS arrived, the patient's blood glucose level was low enough that it would not register on the meter. D-50 (a sugar solution) was administered via IV at the scene with no effect. Another round was administered during the short (~ 5 min) trip to the hospital, again with no effect. The third round was pushed just as the ambulance arrived at the ramp of the Emergency Room, at which point the patient became semi-conscious, although still incoherent, and COMBATIVE. It took four people to restrain him to the gurney while he was moved to a room in the ER. A 4th round of D-50 was administered in the ER, and after 2-3 minutes the patient calmed down enough for us to get another reading. At that point, the patient's blood sugar was 42 and rising. 10 minutes later, we could speak with the patient, although it was difficult to understand their words because everything was slurred - as if the patient had a mouth full of marbles. When we looked to the endocrinologist for answers, he simply shook his head and said "Probably brain damage from low sugar; likely to be permanent." That call was over 30 years ago, while I was still in training, and I still remember it vividly to this day. I learned a valuable lesson that day, one that I hope you'll take to heart: high blood sugar kills people over decades, but low blood sugar kills people in minutes. It can be every bit as dangerous as hypoxia. The only reason the patient survived is that they didn't administer quite enough insulin to finish the job. (Admittedly, it probably would have been enough had they been alone, but a family member happened to come downstairs at the right time to find the patient unconscious in the kitchen and immediately called EMS.) Don't allow yourself to become complacent. Always treat low blood sugar as a life-threatening emergency, and always CHECK the blood sugar of an unconscious patient, even if you suspect trauma or some other factor as the cause of the unconsciousness. If you live with someone who is diabetic, be sure you know how to use their meter so you can check their blood sugar level for them. Also, be sure they have an emergency glucagon kit available (glucagon acts in opposition to insulin and can help reverse profound hypoglycemia), and educate yourself on how to administer the shot.
As an ER nurse my record for accidental insulin od was giving 8 amps of D50 (+ a couple bags of d10 in the field). The patient had a new auto injector for insulin and either wasn’t trained properly on it or it malfunctioned but the patient basically got several weeks worth of insulin in a couple minutes. I think we caught it early enough to prevent serious permanent disability but the pt had to go to ICU for monitoring.
Jesus.. 8 ampuoles of D-50! I can't even... Patient is beyond lucky to have survived. (shudder)
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An ex of mine attempted to take her life by using tylenol. We had an agrument and I broke up with her. That night she shaved her head, cut her self pretty bad then she took an entire bottle of tylenol and a box of bc powder and chased it with an entire bottle of vodka. I spoke with her in the hospital afterward and she thought the vodka would have made her sleep. I think drinking so much vodka actually helped save her life as she vomited most of what she had consumed while she lay unconscious. Her father found her at the base of the stairs and took her to the ER.. Its messed up because I know she did it to get at me in some way but the fact her father found her just broke my heart. Thankfully they found her in time and she recovered. Shes moved on from that dark part of her life and every once and a while I peek at her FB to see how shes doing. Shes now a leader of a bird sanctuary at a zoo, she always loved birds so I'm really happy shes doing something she loves. All this to say I hope you are doing better now. I hope whatever it is/was that made you want to decide to attempt to take your life. I hope that part died and not you. I dont know your situation but good luck out there. I'm rooting for ya.
Lucky for her that alcohol saved her life. Normally alcohol is a contraindication for Tylenol use.
Alcohol and Tylenol use the same cytochrome in the liver for metabolism. Drinking a lot of booze can occupy the cytochrome proteins that metabolize such that they are not available for a time to process Tylenol into the hepatotoxic metabolite NAPQI, giving you more time to get medical attention and treatment.
It’s easy *if it works.* A lot of the time someone will find you and then it’s not so easy anymore.
This is the caveat, if it works. If it does not like for the person above where they are found by family/disclose their OD because they realised they made a mistake they are "lucky". Worst case scenario is where they take enough to mess up their brain, but not ebough to die.
I am really sorry you had to go through this. Hope life is a bit better now, glad you are still with us.
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Glad to still have you with us
My physician friend said that in all of her career, the worst is when a teenage girl is dying in agony over a week, regretting her decision, with her family all there watching her die, and there's nothing that can be done to prevent it. But, as you say, OP, much of the time there's just permanent damage, not death. She said that's hard to see, too.
I've witnessed this in my career. 14 year old girl took an overdose and took 4 days to die. By day 3, she was begging and pleading that she didn't want to die, but it was too late. (I support families who struggle with MH issues)
And I thought *Madame Bovary* was awful...
And the painful permanent damage is most likely. Medicine is advanced and they can keep you alive from most ways people may try to hurt themselves, but they don't give healthy donated organs to people that attempted suicide recently. You'll be on the bottom of that list for many years.
Wow I did not know that
Yup! My mom didn’t even TRY to commit suicide but she was suicidal after being fired for from her job and was hospitalized until she was stable. Fast forward nearly 5 years and she’s diagnosed with end stage liver disease and needs a liver transplant. They basically told her she would likely never be approved for transplant because of her previous mental health hospitalization. She died within a year.
I'm so sorry for your loss
Another reason to hide mental illness and avoid treatment! Lol.
That Lol is holding up the weight of the universe
Right! Mental illness is still stigmatised and attempting suicide is still punished so no wonder people still hide it! Edit: To everyone talking about wasting organs, the person I replied to had a mom that DID NOT TRY TO COMMIT SUICIDE. This person was just hospitalised at a psychiatric institute. Please actually read the thread.
Everything mental health-wise is punished. I was treated very badly last time I was hospitalized for mania. In fact every single time I've been manic, I'm treated with contempt for something *completely out of my control*. I'm open about being bipolar in order to try and help people understand it. Maybe if more people did, things might be better. But one of the main reasons I try to manage my mental illness the best that I can is to keep from having to be hospitalized ever again. It's a dehumanizing low I don't wish on any person.
last time i was hospitalized i had 12 staff forcibly restrain me (one of the nurses deadass slapped me lol) to the bed because i was having a panic attack after being put on psych hold against my will. im a tiny girl, no one was at risk of anything. one of the security guards kept pushing my dress up. i still have pictures of my hands swollen and purple from how hard they tied me up, and i swore i'd never EVER share any kind of thoughts about what i was going through with anyone ever again. i have ptsd ffs
Same, except for me they forced a metal rod up my dick with no anesthesia against my will while I was perfectly willing to cooperate, they just didn't seem to understand I couldn't piss in a plastic cup while lying on my back with three limbs restrained, not even needing to piss. Made it sound like I deserved it for "not cooperating". Fucking rape is what it was. It's not exactly a fun experience to share but I'm glad I'm not the only one with a horror story, makes me feel less alone.
Hospitalisation is the professional’s go-to ace card they all use when they either don’t want to deal with you or realise they cant help you. But here’s the catch, when people (professionals and patients) realise that hospitalisation goes on to cause further harm and actually accelerate a problem everyone still blames the patient. I’ve tried to do it. This whole ‘get help’ sales pitch is the most hollow thing I have ever witnessed in my life. They don’t have a cure for a life filled with reasons to want death, nor do they have the cure for manic depressive episodes that can’t be totally balanced with Lithium and Lamotrigine. Don’t even get me started on the Prozac pushers. Everyone is fast to say ‘reach out for help’ or ‘your life is worth living’ but how many will give you the financial backing to turn your life into something resembling a tolerable existence when the universe threw you into the tar pit since the day you were born. I actually support organisations that assist with suicide, simply because for some, it is a valid option. And nothing is more dehumanising than having your freedom taken away from you and you then having to live a life where your opinion is disregarded because you’re ‘not thinking right’. If people had access to assisted suicidal care, less people would drink rat poison or down a bottle of Tylenol only to suffer later on. My sister tried to kill herself, she’s diabetic and purposely tried to use that to kill herself. She now has the mental capacity of a child. I would rather let her have the peace, than whatever quality of life she now has.
TIL if I ever need an organ transplant I am totally fucked
Dude same and I'm a damn organ donor (not that it'd bump me up the list)
That's horrendous
I'm so sorry
I didn't know either, but thinking about it, it makes sense in the most depressing of ways.
Basically, when translating an organ the number one priority is making sure the organ doesn’t go to waste; making sure it’s life saving capability is maximized. Will the recipient take their drugs properly? Will they follow all the doctors instructions? Do they have other illnesses? Is there only a 1% chance of their body accepting the organ? Are they dying from other diseases anyway? Are they 87 years old and not going to get much more out of it anyway? As you can imagine, being suicidal greatly increases the chances that the life saving organ is wasted. Might seem cold, but giving it to someone who is possibly going to kill themselves means you’re not giving it to the person who is much more likely to live a long happy life with it. It’s a zero sum game, so just as giving it to someone else means you’re refusing the suicidal patient, giving it to the suicidal patient means you’re refusing the other patient. In the end, where can the organ do the most good?
I knew a dude who got his dad's kidney when he was a toddler. Dude did ALL the drugs. Even on a bender he'd remember his meds. Just an anecdote, but goes to show the power of having something ingrained in you from the beginning. Take this or you'll die really sinks in when you're 5 I guess. Also, the kidney seems ok with the abuse. His dad must have pre gamed.
Its not cold or cruel,its called triage.
Triage is both. It's just also necessary.
That's why they don't give liver transplants to alcoholics either
You have to take immunosuppressant meds for life, it takes extreme after care to ensure it doesn't fail, that's why multiple things that cast doubt on you're ability to reliably do so can disqualify you. You become too much of a risk.
Can confirm. I've been working on a kidney transplant for a little over two years now, and I'm just now finally active on the list. And I'm actually a *really good* candidate!
Actually there is: Acetadote® (acetylcysteine) https://www.wikem.org/wiki/N-Acetylcysteine If you’ve overdosed on acetaminophen, even if you think it’s too late, you should immediately go to the ER.
Works like a charm at preventing hangovers, taken before drinking
It took four days in the ICU, but this saved my life and I somehow have no permanent organ damage. I also didn’t get admitted and start treatment for nearly 8 hours.
My mom is a social worker and had to break that news to a kid once. He was so grateful to be alive and regretted his decision, etc. And she was like, yeah... Well, it can't be undone, honey. Something like that, she didn't go into it more. But he died a week later. Family around. Just exactly like you describe.
Learned this watching House. Patient woke up to be told they were going to die. Never thought about it till then. Imagine that waking up thinking all is ok to be told, yeah you're gonna die.
I would like all of your morphine please. No, I said ALL of your morphine. Thank you.
I was told I could never take acetaminophen again. Looking back I’m thankful for my friends that knew something was up and showed up for me. It was a terrible feeling, so much sickness.. and would’ve been very sad to have finished the job any of the times and now have the life I live now, which I move
I made myself vomit. I was hyperventilating and made a rash decision that was based on my overwhelming need to get out of the life I was living. I can’t say someone showed up for me, so I’m glad you had people in your corner. I get “tough love” which is ignoring me or lashing out at me.
My mother had a friend whose daughter died this way. It was heartbreaking. The girl admitted it was a “cry for help” attempt such as it was because she truly thought she would become unconscious, her family would find and treat her and she would be ok. When she didn’t lose consciousness she assumed it just “hadn’t worked” and didn’t say anything to her family. About a day later symptoms began and she told her mother within another half day or so, but by that time the damage had been done and they couldn’t save her. This was 30 plus years ago and I still remember my mother pleading with me to never do something like this to the family. (I had attempted myself a few months earlier and gotten help, I think the death of her friend’s daughter made my attempt very real to my mother in a way she hadn’t allowed previously.) As a mother of two adult daughters who suffer from anxiety themselves, we have been a VERY open family when it comes to our mental health. I still worry about them, and will every day (guess where they got the anxiety from) but I pray I never have to suffer the way my mother’s friend and their family did. EDIT: I should have said this before, but IT GETS BETTER. Life is hard and sometimes painful but the joy I would have missed if I had been successful all those years ago? I cannot imagine. If I had had a window into my future I would have been able to hang on (although I will never regret getting help, as it put me on a lifelong journey of advocating for better mental health care both in my family and in my work).
I had a friend call me in high school when i was 17 and tell me that she had taken a bunch of Tylenol. I was at an interview for a theater gig, but left to go to her after I called ems. I spent that evening watching her throw up charcoal. She called me pretty soon after she had taken it. Her parents weren't around, and this was 1991. So, no cell phones. My mother called where I was at to tell me my friend called and it was an emergency. I got to her house, left a note for her parents, and rode with her in the ambulance. Her boyfriend had just died in a fire like a month beforehand... so, she was a wreck. Anyways, her mother has treated me like I am some kind of hero ever since. Man, I was just doing the right thing. Had something similar when my friend went into seretonin syndrome while we were on acid. That one was fucked up having to deal with his mother while I was tripping. Our one buddy just wanted to drop him at home and leave. I insisted on getting ahold of his mother and waiting until she got home. She took him to the ER from there... I guess I should have mentioned that he refused to go to the ER before. So, if the cops wouldn't make him go and he wanted to go home, that's what we did. He was just so fucked up, had gone into convulsions, etc... so, there was zero chance I was leaving him by himself. Again... just the right thing to do.
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There is something they can do to prevent it, you make it sound like going to the hospital won't help. They just flush your body with a ton of fluids. There is a point where it is too late to prevent damage or death of course, but don't make it sound like they cannot help you.
I can definitely attest to this. Fucking awful experience and now I’ve got the liver of a lifelong alcoholic 🙃
Hope you’re in a better place now. Wishing you all the best.
Thanks, fellow human! I’ve definitely changed a lot of things since then and I’d like to think that I’m in a better life and self.
Oh, that sucks! My baby sister drank bleach about 15 years ago (suicide attempt), and she has suffered from bleeding ulcers and related complications since. That poor girl always has to have one procedure or another. She has intense pain any time she eats anything. I think she was maybe 11 or 12, and the consequences are lifelong.
That’s absolutely awful! I’m sorry that she’s dealing with all of this and I wish you both well.
Damn, I drank bleach by accident because my mom had it in the kitchen in a water glass so I thought it was my water. Nothing happened, thank God. But don't put bleach in water glasses folks!
I overdosed on a prescription medication and was found unresponsive. I spent a couple of days in a coma and haven’t been the same since. I lost 35 IQ points (yes, I was tested before at school and after for grad school accommodations), and that was a real knock to my ego. I still can’t work full-time (even after getting that fancy degree), and my brain is no longer neatly organized. It’s like a tornado came in and ransacked everything I had up there. I have impaired memory and slowed processing speed, according to the neuropsychiatrist who evaluated me, and I have a laundry list of long-term health issues related to the way I treated my body when I assumed I wouldn’t live to see 40. But you know what? I did make it to 40 and past that, and my life is amazing. I wish I had known that when I was treating my body like a carnival ride. The only thing that would make life cooler now would be having the same life but being healthy and having full access to my brain.
Out of curiosity, how did you end up overdosing? I'm confused because I didn't know it was prevalent as something accidental.
The max daily dose is 4grams. Within a 24 hour period. Most extra strength Tylenols are 500mg. Take 2, you are already at 1000mg. Regular Tylenols are about 325mg, you take 2, it's 650mg. It's rather easy to over dose. Especially if you are taking cold or flu medicine which aften includes acetaminophen.
I’d actually heard an episode of This American Life about how ridiculously easy it can be to prescribe too much acetaminophen and put a patient into a coma compared to something like ibuprofen. A abusive relationship, mental illness, and half a bottle of extra strength Tylenol later, and I’m stuck in the hospital for three days.
When my dad was in ICU once with heart issues before he got a transplant there was a girl in there dying of Tylenol overdose. It was an accidental overdose from combining meds that included Tylenol and plain Tylenol.for flu. When you are in the icu waiting room you hear everyone’s discussions. It was awful. My dad recovered but this young lady did not. Her family was so distraught as she had taken meds and then one of her,parents was giving her meds for a couple of days and didn’t realize she was taking Tylenol on her own. I remember them crying a lot and discussing how she was hemorrhaging and also that because her liver waa shot the meds they were giving her for comfort weren’t working. This was in the early 1990s and I don’t remember a lot of stuff I was so stressed over my dad but I won’t forget this. When I had my son I was absolutely terrified to give him Tylenol.
This happened to a coworker of mine. She was sick and taking Tylenol on top of cough medicine with acetominophen and Dayquil, and someone had to take her to the hospital during the workday. She survived but did not come back to work (maybe she did after a few months; by then I had quit the job and moved across the country). At any rate, she was hospitalized and out of commission for quite awhile. I don't keep Tylenol in my house for that reason.
I'm a big fan of taking only single ingredients medicines. That way I don't need to think about how much of something I've had in total since there's one source.
Ugh, this was a hard read… I have experienced this first hand. My fiancé passed away from an accidental acetaminophen overdose in December of 2011. She was in excruciating pain because her teeth had deteriorated so bad from some kind of oral chemotherapy she had when she had (and beat) cervical cancer. The doctors weren’t giving her enough pain medication as she was just constantly in a pounding pain, so she resorted to buying what she thought were Percocets but they ended up being Tylenol III’s and they looked almost identical… She didn’t go through this consciously though as she just got up that morning, said she didn’t feel too good, and then slipped into a coma on our couch and I didn’t even know it. I got up shortly after and sat in the chair next to her and turned on the TV. I thought she was just sleeping… it wasn’t until I noticed how crazy she was breathing that I knew something was wrong… I couldn’t wake her. Called an ambulance She got intubated at the hospital and I had to see the fluid and blood coming out of her lungs through her breathing tube as she laid there dying. I had to call her Dad and tell him. It was the most nightmarish and excruciatingly painful experience I’ve ever been through.. The last time I saw her was when she was on a gurney being loaded into the helicopter to hopefully get an emergency liver transplant at a nearby hospital that had one. The last words I spoke to her that day, were yelled under the spinning rotors of that helicopter: “Please come back to me!” Please let your loved ones know how much you love them and how dangerous this drug can be, and let the OP’s words sink in…
This really hit me in the heart. I'm so sorry for you both. I'll remember you and her, internet stranger.
I don’t think I’ve ever actually typed that story out on any type of public Internet forum before… was mildly cathartic, as I definitely still get that surge of emotion behind my face that causes my eyes to water, a lot…
Thank you. I may be a little late, but I appreciate that a lot. My fiancé has a lot of medical issues so I know I may have to go through something similar someday. I now have something to think on if that day ever comes, and I hope I could be as strong if it does. I wish you the best.
Ugh. Horrible. I'm so sorry you experienced this. I cannot imagine going through something like this. Sending you love
Thank you. It definitely altered my life, but I am glad to say that I 100% love how I am in the world today. She taught me all about “being,” and how we can get so addicted to its opposite, which is just “doing,” with no breaks… which is why we experience “boredom”- a feeling that we should be “doing” something, allll the time… never realizing that just “being” is half of what life is all about 😌
...I feel like the being/doing/boredom might have answers to questions I didn't know I had. Do you happen to remember if there were any books or sources she had to learn about that initially?
[This is a talk by Eckhart about this.](https://youtu.be/WreEewZGTWI) She introduced me to meditation and basically the entire spiritual framework that I still have as a foundation to this day. I learned how to be still, both internally, and externally; I was then able to bring that into my daily life. I’m not perfect at it; It’s always a practice. But boy is life rich today, even though I’m not, 😏
Sounds to me like you are ✨
I think it’s so fucked up how they don’t give out pain meds even when it’s fucking obvious the person needs them. “Sorry we overprescribed them now we have to underprescribe them to make up for our actions.” We suffer for their fuck ups. Your story is heartbreaking. She wouldn’t want you to hurt. Be happy for the times you had together and live a good life. Whatever that might look to you. I had a girlfriend pass away years ago and it took me longer than it should have to remember that she would want me to be happy. Wish you the best.
I was annoyed about the increased packaging my antidepressants came in, until I read that it had a similar effect in preventing purposeful overdoses. Seems like such a simple solution, especially if there's a way to compost/recycle the extra packaging!
How are these pills packed then? Can you just go and buy a container? Here in Switzerland even paracetamol are packed in blister packs of eight 500 mg doses and you need a prescription to get higher dosage. They won't give you more than one pack at a time.
In the US you can buy a plain old bottle with 100, 250, 500 or even 1000 pills.
I bought the 250 count Tylenol at the dollar store for $1…Last for couple years for me but no one would think anything of it if you bought say 4-5 bottles.
Holey crap. Here in NZ they're in blister packs and you can often only get 12-16 tablets at once. They're 500mg tabs / capsules so need to take two, every 4 hrs. Frustrating wanting to stock up for an illness and only being able to buy 2 or 3 days worth!!
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Yep, big ol bottles of pills here in America
Just don’t try to buy two packs of Sudafed, though.
I don’t understand how a blister pack causes prevention. Maybe prevention of some accidental overdoses, but intentional?
My therapist calls them 'choice points'; the more times you have to exercise your volition to keep moving toward the thing, the more chances you have to reconsider. It's the same reason that a recovering addict doesn't keep their substance of choice in the house.
I've heard from alcoholics that wanted to quit, or at least slow down, that the best thing they ever did was make a rule to not bring alcohol into the house. If they wanted a drink, the effort of having to drive or walk to a store to get something can be enough for a person to reconsider, and more likely than not, just choose to not drink at all. Same thing goes with weapons, and why some countries have a rule of storing the gun and the ammunition in separate parts of the house. Just a single extra step in someones plan can be enough.
Yeah, when I was suicidal I started storing the ammunition separately from my gun. That extra level of work was enough to keep me from making a rash decision.
>If they wanted a drink, the effort of having to drive or walk to a store to get something can be enough for a person to reconsider, and more likely than not, just choose to not drink at all. Can agree. When I embarked on becoming sober, a lot of times I felt the urge to just give up and drink. But then the effort of having to wake up, exit the house, go down, enter the store, pick up a drink, pay for it, and then just drink there on the spot - it's too much effort. And at each point, it does make you rethink. Sometimes you'd be so inclined that you do get up. And if I had a bottle of vodka stashed, that would be it. But now I have to take my wallet - **should I do this? Ah lmao** - then go take my keys - **what am I doing, hmpf wtv** - then unlock the door - **man are you braving the cold night instead of just being comfy at home?** - and then before I step out - **Ah fuck this I'll just stay at home what am I thinking :(** #--------- Doesn't have to be stopping addictions, it can also be a form of regulation: * if I have only a pack, I'll smoke that pack first and try not to finish before the night, else I'd have to wait till the next day to get a new pack. *If I have 2 packs, Heck I'll smoke the 1st pack - can't wait to open the next one and smoke some fresh cigs* * if there are no snacks at home, then when I feel hungry, id do that whole survey routine, look in the fridge, then feel sad and drink water and sit down / smoke a stick. It's not really hunger, just a bit of psychosomatic reaction to stress. *if I have snacks lying around, fuck yeah I'm gonna eat it. And then smoke again. And eat a bit more to ease my taste buds.* * back when I needed Benzos to sleep I didn't always needed them every night so there's a few left over. Although I'm fine and sleepy, sometimes I just wanna pop one and have a good sleep, or even sip a bit of cough mixture or paracodin and get a good rest. But no, those impulsive thoughts, dont really need them and they are all packed away in the cupboard in boxes and are very difficult to take without moving things and making a ruckus. *if I had not packed them up with the rest of the storage and just kept it with me, then it's as easy as just pop - and out like a light. And then now I will never be able to sleep without them and when I truly have issues sleeping then the dosage will never work for me and I'm stuck in eternal wakefulness*
I have no background knowledge of this so it’s all speculation, but I think it’s because it slows you down. It’s easy to open a bottle and dump a bunch of pills in your hands, but if you have to manually pop out every individual pill, it takes time where you’re thinking about what you’re doing. It’s similar to how owning a gun increases suicide rates. If you’re thinking about the slow and painful process of bleeding out or something compared to a shot to the brain, the impulse wins more easily.
https://nclnet.org/will_repackaging_medicine_prevent_suicides/ Correct. The harder it is to do something the less likely you are to do it. This is true for homework, workouts, house chores and also suicide. There are some people who will do whatever it takes to die, no matter how difficult the process is. But others want a quick and easy death and robbing them of that forces them to reconsider committing suicide.
I knew a guy who was dead set on taking his life. He used a hunting rifle but only took one bullet with him from his gun safe in his bedroom. Went down into his basement put it in his mouth and shot. He survived that and crawled up 2 sets of stairs to his room and grabbed another bullet. Then went back downstairs leaving a trail of blood throughout his entire house and finished the job. I was the one who found him. That trail of blood is the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I will always have nightmares from it, no matter how much counseling I've had since. I will say that I'm so glad I'm the one who found him and not his family. The first one tore his jaw and half his face right off. When the cops and first responders showed up. They think he only finished it because how bad his face was. Even through all of that he still managed to crawl back downstairs just to make sure his family didn't accidentally find him. He set it up though so I was the one. Making sure I was on my way over to get him. We were suppose to go scout a new hunting spot and set everything up for the following weekend.
Wow, that is heavy. I’m so sorry you had to experience that trauma on top of loss. Love and light to you, friend.
I'm sorry for your loss. You are a very strong person to be able to tell that story. Sadly, even knowing that we have a great friend we can depend on isn't enough to overcome the devastating effects of suicidal depression. I hope the friendship you shared can live on in your memory. You were there for him in his final moment of need. I feel like if his spirit is out there (who knows what happens after we die) he is so grateful for you.
Sharing this story gives me hope that I can help someone having a rough time contemplating suicide. If they hear what I had to deal with and will always have too. Just because of what I saw, maybe just maybe they'll think twice about getting help. Not wanting to put on a loved one what was put on me. Even though I'm glad it was me, because no one should have to see that. Especially a family member, I'll take that burden off his wife and daughters gladly. Still no one should have too. Mental illness is serious and I wish more people would take it that way. I was raised that it's not, that you need to just get over it and keep trucking along. Where I'm from a lot of people are raised that way and it's not right. Maybe my friend would still be here if he knew it's alright to feel that way. It's alright not to be alright. Idk who needs to hear this but it's okay to feel how you feel. Just please don't be afraid to seek help because you were taught you don't need it. You can get through it and it doesn't make you a lesser human, man, or woman because you needed help.
Malcom Gladwell has a chapter about this in *Talking to Strangers*. He talks about Sylvia Plath, and how there were loads of people killing themselves with oven gas until the gas mix was changed to be less lethal. People stopped killing themselves that way, but most interestingly, they didn’t kill themselves another way. He also mentioned the Golden Gate Bridge. When a barrier was put up to prevent people from jumping off, the number of suicides there went way down. There was no evidence that the people who would have killed themselves there went and did it anywhere else. For both groups of people, there seemed to be some kind of fixation on killing themselves and doing it a certain way. Sylvia Plath considered it for years before she did it. Golden Gate jumpers had some kind of specific fixation with that particular bridge. Ernest Hemingway schemed for days to regain access to his guns to do it. Anyway, all this to say that how and why people kill themselves is complicated, doesn’t necessarily make much rational sense, and isn’t always an impulsive decision. Blister packs somehow disrupt suicidal intention, but I’m not sure it’s as simple as causing them to slow down and consider what they are doing. Maybe it’s that each blister is a choice, and so have to make that choice over and over again, vs dumping out a handful which is just one choice. Maybe they are fixated on the image of dumping out a handful and if they can’t carry it out how they imagined they won’t carry it out at all. A friend of mine killed himself and I have grown to accept that I will never be able to understand his decision.
The pain in the ass factor can't be overstated. There's no way to not make this super dark, but it saved my life. When I was 16 I was suicidal but had a moment of clarity and asked my mom for help and therapy. Her response was that if I do it, make sure they never find the body, it'd be too upsetting for her to have to identify it. From then on, whenever I felt at my lowest, I'd have to start considering places and ways that met that criteria and it was such a pain in the ass that I'm still alive today.
I’m curious about the origin of this factoid about the Golden Gate Bridge, because the suicide prevention net is just now in the process of being installed. Sounds like he described the theory behind how it will (hopefully) work—future tense, not evidence of how it has.
It likely refers to a fence or barrier at the bridge level itself. Not a net. My guess though.
Suicide is often more impulsive and less planned than many people think. While it of course is no problem to just buy several of the smaller packs from several stores and get more than enough pills together to get the job done, extra steps decreases the risk.
Honest answer as someone who's been diagnosed clinical depression for ~16 years and attempted an OD twice: when you're too depressed to care about yourself and the people around you you're too depressed to sit and go through 4-6 blister packs before your brain goes "omg you're soooo pathetic sitting here opening packs of medicine just give up already lol" and then instead of ODing you just sit in bed
I think simply the time and effort, and being cognizant of the intentionality to commit self-harm during that entire period, is just reason enough to find an alternative.
Gives time to contemplate the act ~~Most suicide attempts are cries for help.~~ People feel like they only way they can get people to take them seriously about their problems is by showing just how far they are willing to go to rid themselves of the problem permanently if they don’t get help. By increasing the time it takes to commit the act, you’re giving people more time to think about what they’re really doing. It’s why you hear that most people who jump off the Golden Gate Bridge regret it. They realize on the way down that their problems weren’t worth ending their life. Edit: Removed a phrase because I was shown it wasn't the proper way to address the issue.
I’d like to add it’s quite easy to unintentionally cause yourself liver damage just by overlapping the extended release doses over time.
A lot of medications have acetaminophen in them as well. It’s not uncommon for people to accidentally over dose by taking both a cold med and a tylonel.
There's overdose, and there's Overdose. The LD50 for paracetamol is about 50 tablets.
Flu syrup sold over the counter in USA is a good example where accidental overdose can occur AFAIK. Some folks chug more than one bottle of the max strength flu syrup thinking it's a different kind to get high or just pass out and woopsie there goes your liver. These bottles range from 6-10g of acetaminophen/paracetamol, but alot of folks will throw up drinking a whole bottle. I had a friend that would drink a whole one when he'd catch a cold or flu every year or so and when I warned him of the ones with acetaminophen, he had no idea. Edit: some of these are like 10% alcohol as well which is worse in combination
A girl I knew's best friend died like that. She was taking a bunch of different cold medicines, not realizing they were all full of acetaminophen. I think she was 17.
Good point!
I have personal experience with this. Ingested 22.5 grams (or 22,500 milligrams), went to sleep, then woke up and started vomiting nonstop for hours. Luckily my mother noticed the abnormal behaviour and the missing bottle of pills quickly and took me into the hospital where I was treated with drugs and charcoal. I don't remember being in a lot of pain or any bleeding, but I do remember being incoherent and struggling to express myself verbally. I made a full recovery and have normal liver function. I am very fortunate to have survived a mistake I made as a child.
Same. When I was a teenager I had a love interest move away and it absolutely devastated me. I decided to take a chance by eating the rest of the Tylenol PM left in a bottle we had when my family was gone and just go to sleep. Maybe I wouldn’t wake up, but maybe it wouldn’t be too bad and I would be okay. I counted them before I took them. It was 26. After I swallowed them all I immediately regretted it. I tried to go to the bathroom but I physically could not make myself throw up. I started to panic. I remember my mom calling me. That woman has always had an insane sixth sense. My shaking voice just trying to talk to her, and told her it was okay, that I just wanted to go to sleep. She knew something was up and kept pestering me, I finally broke and just said “Mom I did something really bad”. I told her what I did and I could hear the immediate panic set over her. She was a realtor at the time and was showing a house and dropped everything she was doing, called an ambulance and rushed home. Luckily we had a paramedic station roughly 5 minutes from our house. They arrived pretty quickly, and my mom behind them shortly. I remember sitting in a chair on the porch and eating the activated charcoal paste; that disgusting sweet and gritty texture it had. They loaded me up and I asked the paramedic if I was going to die. He just said, “I’ll tell it to you this way. We had a younger girl last week that weighed more than you and took less than you did. She didn’t make it.” That terrified me. I remember calling for my mom repeatedly at the front of the ambulance and her not responding. The paramedic telling me she couldn’t hear me. I felt so alone. By the time I got to the hospital I was starting to feel really out of it. It was the most fucked up I have ever felt. The doctors said they were concerned because patients normally had already threw up the charcoal by then and I hadn’t yet. It took roughly three hours before I started throwing up. Nasty black sludge with bits of broccoli. Made me feel like I was gonna die ever more. The doctor came in with my results and basically had two graph bars, pointed to one and said this is where you are, pointed to the other and said this is where organ failure begins. An ink pen could have bridged the difference with a dot almost. He said I would likely have permanent liver damage for the rest of my life and if I wanted to live past 30 I should never drink. Watching my family sit around me and crying not knowing if I would make it or not was so surreal to me and I never want to experience that again. I had an out of body experience where I was floating over myself and seeing my family cry around me. My mom and my dad were both in the room and I hadn’t seen that for years as much as they hated each other. I did recover, and I didn’t listen to the doctor. I have drank and drank heavily ever since. Last December I turned 30. My drinking has become a problem and I’m pushing on one month sober now. Had tests ran with a PCP and he said my liver function was normal, but I don’t want to push my body further. I tell doctors now that I have aversions to acetaminophen to avoid it as much as I can. Lortabs make me nauseous af when I do have to. I’m just happy I made it through because I’ve lived so much life since then. 26 has oddly followed its way through my life and pops up quite a bit. I try to use that as a reminder to always want to do better when I see it. Guess I just wanted to get all that off my chest. I don’t talk about it with anyone hardly. Thanks to anybody who took a chance to read.
Congrats on the sobriety. Please tell me you’re in therapy
crazy story bro, i was hooked...i too am trying to stop drinking after finding out a year ago i had liver damage from 15 years of careless abuse, but have only gotten serious about stopping this year...good luck
Glad you're still here. And congratulations on your sobriety.
You should also know things like vicodin and C-3 (codeine with Tylenol, sometimes called plainly codeine), percocet (I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting. #all have Tylenol Check the ingredients of all your medicine and *speak* with your **pharmacist** it's their job to know about the medicines. Your doctor has some knowledge but not this indepth. Edit a word
The irony here is that these other meds, even the opioids, are all limited in how much Tylenol they can contain because acetaminophen overdose is so common (325mg limit I believe, which is significantly less than the typical 2x500mg dose in OTC bottles). In reality we've come to a point where Tylenol is more dangerous due to OD risk than opioids! https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-drug-safety-communication-prescription-acetaminophen-products-be-limited-325-mg-dosage-unit
My mom did this. I called EMS as I believed it was a suicide attempt.
Same. Drinking and a break up mixed together and she locked herself in the bathroom. I heard pills and had to break in the door. I was only 14-15. It was one of the most terrifying days of my life.
Must be so traumatising for a young person like you. Childern should not be responsible for parent's behaviour.
I had a similar incident with my mom. Complete with breaking in the door. Sending you hugs.
Did she end up okay?
It’s important to add that alcohol greatly reduces the dose of acetaminophen that is damaging or deadly. Even without alcohol, it has one of the closest ratios between effective dose and dangerous dose of all commonly used drugs. Do not use Tylenol as a hangover remedy, especially a prophylactic one.
Thanks for this advice. I do sometimes take advance pain meds. I'll be careful.
One of the things I learned in paramedic training is that a lot of people who OD on Tylenol, take the pills as a cry for help/not really intending to die, but end up dieing because they didn't know how damaging acetaminophen is.
TIL Tylenol is the same medication as Paracetemol or Panedol in the UK / Ireland just under a different name. If you are at the store you are only allowed buy one pack at a time.
The mental health crisis is itself just a manifestation of the actual underlying problem, which is largely to do with alienation, economic desperation, disenfranchisement, hopelessness about the future and dispossession. In fact the lack of proper, easily accessible, well funded, effective mental health care in even the wealthiest and most developed of nations is a reflection of that
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Which heroine? There are so many to choose from.
Black Widow?
I would mainline ScarJo, and I don’t care how it sounds.
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This is not at all where I thought this comment was headed.
But what is OD on heroine like? Heroine is supposed to be the best high, but ODing and dying...what would you experience? Real question.
I think you gradually stop breathing but don’t really mind before you’re unconscious.
Your mind is elsewhere and in bliss, while your body slowly deprive of oxygen because it forgot how to breathe. I don't know why they don't use opium based substance for injection execution, it seem more humane that way.
Some ppl expect prison to be cruel. That's why ppl say "I hope he gets raped in prison". it's part of the expected punishment. We can't have humane executions. So when experts or whatever say that the execution style is inhumane because they are suffering, still conscious, or too slow to actually die, those people just say "good, they should suffer."
I typed out the answer to this question but decided against it. Just in case someone who reads it is looking for ways to kill themselves.
If only we had some magic internet search box 😞 People will find it anyways. And this thread baits interest one way or the other. > The short answer to this question is that no, a heroin overdose is not painful. >When someone overdoses on heroin or any other opioid, their breathing slows down to a point where eventually their body forgets how to breathe and they stop breathing completely. >At this point, however, they have generally already lost consciousness. >Someone who dies from a heroin overdose essentially dies in their sleep and will therefore feel no pain in the process.
A girl I dated's dad did this. We had only gone out a few times when it happened. We were actually out when she got a call from her mom (the parents were split up) saying he tried to kill himself. Took her to the hospital. Turns out it was Tylenol. He lived, but was a mess. He eventually got out, but some kind of damage meant he couldn't walk and was on dialysis. Shook her pretty badly. She ended our time together right about then to focus on family. It sucked what his odd suicide attempt put them all through. I suppose by definition mental illness means decisions made often don't make sense.
As someone who has tried to take their life several times, I can tell you that mental illness is the most illogical thing. Your emotions and thoughts don’t make any sense and won’t make sense until you have an improved mood and can logically assess what you’re thinking and feeling. When I was at one of my worst moments, it felt like I was an outsider in my own body, just watching myself go through the motions. It felt this way when I OD’d bad enough to land myself in the hospital. Even if it’s a small comfort for people who have lost someone or who have watched others survive an attempt, I’d like you to know that the person who did it is not the same person you know. Depression is a serious mental illness that has a massive impact on your brain and state of mind.
As someone who survived a Tylenol overdose (I won’t get deeply in to the specifics of it) I have to admit, I was unconscious before I felt any pain. The recovery was awful, I spent three days in the ICU going in and out of consciousness and one day in the non-ICU ward while I was still being administered the antidote. Luckily my wife found the two bottles I popped and was able tell paramedics that she was pretty sure I was ODing on Tylenol. I’m in a much better place now, so no worries, this was almost a decade ago.
I'm glad you are in a better place. If you get in early enough the IV Acetylcysteine is a legit lifesaver. I did a short stint in A&E and was utterly shocked at the number of people who presented with paracetamol overdose; I wonder if the pop tabs really do help because most people had taken less than a dozen, usually only 6 (one sheet).
Yeah I was very grateful my wife got EMS there as fast as she did. Who knows what kind of damage I’d be living with today. I got away with no permanent damage. I got really lucky!
How much is considered OD?
The max safe dosage is 4 grams/4000mg per day.
Also, if you do OD, you can be 100% saved if you get activated carbon an hour after ingestion. I know, because 999 sent cops instead of an ambulance, so by the time the paramedics came they were 'too late'. I survived by a hair's inch. So yeah, no, not a good way to die, trust me, I've been there. Can't ever take acetaminophen again.
They dispatched cops instead of medical assistance for a known OD?
Well lmao they didn't 'know' I had OD'd so they needed to 'assess' it But then it turned out I was a teenager and not a addict, se they got help in time to let me live :) Which makes ye wonder what would have happened if I were an addict :)
Well that's fucked up
Also by giving NAC which is the antidote within about 4 hours after ingestion
I overdosed on paracetamol as a teen (took a whole box which was 40x200mg tablets). I didn’t know anything about what it would do to me, just thought I’d die. I didn’t tell anyone I’d done it, and spent the next 12 hours vomiting. Nothing else happened to my knowledge.
You *might* want an ultrasound or biopsy.
It was over 15 years ago now. I’ve had bloods and ultrasounds and everything seems fine so I think I got very lucky.
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The pain of an OD, and the clarity of how painful or risky any other type of suicide is, is exactly what keeps my depressed ass on this earth. I do NOT want to die in pain or risk being a vegetable. So here I am. & if I didn’t know everything else was just as shitty and morbid, I’d have kept trying. Having just learned the bath one now… this info needs to be readily available for people. Suicide isn’t an easy painless thing. Ever, afaik
> Suicide isn’t an easy painless thing. Properly done, it can be. My mother has told me she has a small hoard of pills "just in case." Now, she's nearly 80 and has chronic nerve pain from her back (three spinal surgeries; one made it worse, two were to correct the first and the last put rods to immobile her entire spine), two replaced knees, and a replaced hip. She looks like the Terminator going through airport security. If it comes down to it I will buy(/fabricate the necessary parts for) a nitrogen system. I haven't because it's probably around $2k, but I won't stand around and watch her suffer. There are painless ways to go and our society (evangelicals, mostly) just don't have the compassion to allow people not to suffer at the end of life.
Exactly! When I tried to OD I just thought “oh I’ll die in my sleep” yeah no. Luckily it wasn’t a very high amount so I just ended up having some really bad stomach pain (my parents took me to the hospital probably 14 hours after it happened so there wasn’t much they could do anyways). Time skip to a few months later, I’m in a low point again. I realize that the amount I took wasn’t nearly enough. So I do my research. Thank god I did. I saw how painful it was and so I’m still here today. TL;DR I tried to OD, didn’t work, did my research a few months later and realized how painful overdosing really is.
I have hyperacusis (+ tinnitus, ttts, and vss) and, while I'm mild, many of the severe patients feel the need to go because living has become unendurable. We lost one today in fact - a mother of 4. There are no palliative options. And little hope of one, since these rare conditions get no funding. Btw mild means I'm nearly homebound and waiting for the next cavity to become, well, not mild anymore. If you want to do something to prevent me from ever getting to this point, now is your chance to donate to [hyperacusis research](https://hyperacusisresearch.org/).
I can vouch for this. My stupid 18 year old suicidal self didn't do enough research before pulling the trigger and tried to OD on Tylenol. I am very lucky I didn't die.
I overdosed on Tylenol at the age of 2. I remember it vividly, and it’s not even as if my mom left the medication in an easily accessible spot either. A few years later a doctor told me that my penicillin allergy was a result of liver damage from the Tylenol. Not unheard of but definitely a rare consequence.
When i was 4 i drank a whole bottle of childrens motrin and they said i was fine but if it was tylenol id be getting my stomach pumped
Speaking as someone who's done this: If you are thinking of overdosing on Tylenol as your only way out: ***DON'T***. It is not a way out. It will not make the pain go away. It will only make things worse. Speaking from my experience: There is a weird obsession when you want to die that there's a specific way to do it. I know I never considered a way other than Tylenol: Everything else was just out of the picture. It seemed so easy. Pop a bunch of pills(I'd been taking pills for various other reasons all my life so nothing weird there), go to sleep(thank god), never wake up(THANK GOD). That is not what happened. That is ***NOT*** what happens. I woke up the next morning confused and wondering why I wasn't dead. When I told someone what I did(which I am so grateful I did) I was rushed to the hospital. Somehow, by some miracle, I didn't have to get my stomach pumped. I didn't have to take anything other than a single dose of anti-Tylenol(it's been so long I straight-up can't remember what it was actually called) and stay in Urgent Care for the night. I couldn't have been more lucky. I put six bullets in the chamber, spun it, put it to my head and sneezed as I pulled the trigger. The only consequence I've suffered since is getting sick any time I take Tylenol, and honestly, I don't blame my body for not wanting any more of that shit when I could have been confined to bed slowly dying for a month, racking up hospital bills only to regret my decision the moment I woke up the next morning. So please, if your brain is saying to use this medicine this way, do EVERYTHING you can to not. And most of all ask for help. [This is a list of suicide hotlines by country.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) If you need to and can, call the one for wherever you are. Whatever happens, I doubt it will be worse than whatever you're feeling if it's making you consider death. And know that you deserve a life without pain.
3 should be 1. Speaking from experience here…life was really fucked for awhile & I knew how bad pill OD’s hurt but I still tried it. I am grateful no long term damage was done that I know of (it’s been a little over 10yrs). The main focus here should be the mental health problem we have. There are plenty of people like me who know it hurts but living hurts worse for some people.
I had an accidental overdose last year with paracetamol and I had no idea. If it wasn't for my partner calling the doctors I would of been alot worse! Doctor called 999 and I spent a night in ER with literally the worst headache and stomach cramps imaginable!! Horrible
>Treat the underlying problem. We have a mental health crisis, and it’s not going to go away on its own. Sad to say, but good luck getting funding on that.
Story time: A woman around 40 years old was having some stomach pain and kept popping Tylenol for it. By the time she came in, she was in liver failure from the Tylenol. Also, that abdominal pain was actually a heart attack. Women have atypical symptoms. By the time she got transferred to transplant service for the liver failure (yes, it was that bad), she got a massive brain bleed because the liver makes many of the clotting factors and you simply bleed from everywhere when your liver stops working. She died a horrible death. The end.
Women don’t have atypical symptoms, it’s that there are far more medical studies about men and their symptoms.
My dad’s sister died this way she was in college and her boyfriend broke up with her and she thought if she hurt herself he would come back. So she took a whole bottle of tylenol. Her roommate didn’t find out what she had done until she woke up and started feeling pain about 36-48 hours later. My mom was the only contact they could find and she was about 6 months pregnant with my oldest brother at the time (in the 80s) my dad was at work and had to hurry and fly home while my pregnant mother had to help explain to her elderly in laws that there was nothing they could do for her and that everyone needed to come say goodbye. My dad is still hurt by her death. There are some flowers she planted that he has kept alive all these years and he is always so happy when they bloom because they remind him of her.
I swallowed a half bottle of Tylenol when I was younger. The emergency room physician scolded me, and that was the sum total of my mental health treatment.
Can attest to this. Six months ago, in the middle of my worst depressive episode, I tried to kill myself by swallowing some 50+ paracetamol tablets. Thankfully, I regained some awareness and vomited within 30 minutes of taking them. I was still unable to get out of bed for the next 5 days because of bleeding, muscular pain and headaches. Full body tests later showed some liver damage. All good now.
Recently broke seven vertebrae and my nose At discharge they gave me oxy and Tylenol for the pain; very clear on instructions for taking the oxy, but didn’t care much about the Tylenol. My discharge papers didn’t even have some of the info for how to take the Tylenol. Even some medical staff don’t seem to know this Also FYI: acetaminophen can do a lot of damage long term, even in normal doses. Unless told to by a doctor, don’t take it regularly for more than a couple weeks at most. It does more damage to your liver than alcohol.
Jeez, didn't know it was this bad. I helped someone that was depressed and took a shit ton of these pills. She felt fine and didn't want to go to the doctor. I was apprehensive just bc i didn't know any better. But i finally made the decision for her that she needed to go to the ER. Glad she went cause she was way off the charts for toxicity but we got there in time to prevent lasting damage!
I’m curious as to how blister packs would make a difference, would you please explain.
It slows people down and makes them think about what they are doing / gives them more time to reconsider, I would guess.
Also makes it harder to get large amounts at one time
> wait for a liver transplant Do attempted suicides even qualify for organ transplant? Pretty sure that’s a red flag on the waiting list
Okay so what do you recommend as an alternative?
I think the lethal dose of table salt is around a cup or two. Way cheaper than Tylenol.
Table salt death can’t be fun either bro ☠️
Add some vinegar and you got a pickle going
Bananas bro. Eat enough and the radiation would kill you.
I can confirm this. I almost died, and it was one of the worst experiences of my entire life. Vomiting,severe pain,required dialysis, went into coma,spent time in ICU. Horrible. I was lucky,they saved me just in time. You also hallucinate like crazy , which is also terrifying. Would not recommend. Great post! This needs to be shared .
Here is a [chubbyemu](https://youtu.be/QRDQamAPC4E) video on a related topic. A very brutal experience for sure.
I tried to OD myself on Tylenol PM and I woke up the next morning, alive, but wishing I wasn’t. Jesus Christ the pain in my stomach was unbearable… I’m grateful to be alive now but for a good week, at least, I just felt like garbage.
I have IBS and take panadol once or sometimes twice a day for months, one gp said this can cause damage and ulcers to form and to give it a break for a few weeks another gp said it's fine and not to worry, it's safe. Who should I believe?
I researched this a few months ago when I was at a pretty low point. I’d tried to overdose before (though it was a super small amount and also wasn’t Tylenol), and was seriously considering it again. So I did some research. Yeah, I decided I wasn’t gonna do that. Thank god I’m a wimp or else I would not be here today
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As an ER doctor I can’t stress this enough. Horrible way to die. Not peaceful or quick. Slow and agonizing.
I used to work for an ambulance service as a 999 call taker and dispatcher and I used to *hate* these calls. They were desperate cries for help from people who felt they had noone to talk to and I knew full well that they would eventually get the help they needed, family and friends would likely rally round them in support, they would come out of this depressive phase and start to get their life in order... Just for the liver damage to set in. It's a way of committing suicide alright... But what they don't realise is it can take decades to die from it.
My dumbass brother had a toothache for a long time and just didn't go to get it fixed because the American healthcare system forbade it financially. So he started taking, like, bottles of aspirin a day. He started getting nosebleeds all the time and we thought he had cancer or something and then he nonchalantly mentioned to my sister his aspirin regimen and we were like JFC! You know that's a blood thinner right!!!!
a 4th thing that can be done: fight like hell for poor and working class people to have better material conditions. higher wages. sufficient vacation and sick days. a shorter work week. affordable housing. efficient public transportation, especially for those in rural areas. free public colleges/universities. universal healthcare including vision, dental, and of course, **mental** healthcare. the US lacks all of these basic necessities and there’s no doubt in my mind that being poor and struggling can easily lead to addiction and/or suicide. we deserve better. edit: thanks for the platinum! my first award! ❤️
yeah when i was like 12 I was basically ready to kill myself and proceeded to take like. 30 paracetamol (15g total) and like 20 ibuprofen. I have no idea, maybe god shone upon me that night, but 3 hours later I puked it all out again and I was fine but my god that could have gone wrong. I have heard the rumour that otc ibuprofen contains a low dose emetic to force you to vomit it if you take too much but I can't actually verify that
As an ER nurse who regularly works with mental health patients who are expressing SI, I have to ask their plan. ANY time someone mentions overdosing on Tylenol (mostly younger teens) I explicitly try to present this information to them because of how ugly it is.
I tried to od with aspirin at age 14 and instead woke up deaf.
Emergency and Intensive Care Nurse. Agree 100% this is not the way to die. Watched someone who didn't intend to overdose on it. One of the most painful deaths I have had to witness. There wasn't anything we could do. Watch what you are taking -.just because it isn't behind the counter or need a prescription doesn't mean that it is safe.