With all the focus on illegal drugs, not many people know that more people die from using prescription and over-the-counter medicines than from all the illegal drugs put together. Used right they can help with health problems, but used wrongly they can cause serious harm, either immediately or in the long term.
What are they?
Prescription only medicines (POMs), such as sleeping tablets and anti-depressants, are those that you can only get from a doctor. However, some of these are now available online. If you buy online, you may not get what you expect. They can look very like the real thing, but some of them are fakes and others are actually much more dangerous substances. It's illegal to supply POMs unless you're a doctor or pharmacist. Taking someone else's POM, or buying online, can be dangerous, as usually you need a doctor to assess your overall health before giving you a prescription, for example it may not agree with an underlying medical condition that you have, or it may not mix well with other drugs or medicines that you're taking.
Over-the-counter medicines (OTCs), such as paracetamol and aspirin, can be bought in chemists, newsagents and supermarkets. Just because you can easily buy them doesn't mean they're 100% safe. You may accidently overdose by taking several different medicines with the same ingredients.
Paracetamol overdose has few symptoms apart from possibly being sick for about two days. A larger dose will then make the person feel ill with a sore tummy, perhaps due to liver damage, that can usually be reversed, if no more overdoses are taken. Sometimes a liver transplant is needed, for which the waiting list can be anything from a few months to a few years. Deaths through paracetamol overdose usually take between five days and several weeks during which time the person will feel confused, may go yellow, and may be unconscious.
Overdose is more likely with some antidepressants than others. Symptoms can include agitation, lethargy, seizures, muscle twitching, jerking muscle movements, coma, extremely low blood pressure, rapid heart rate, heart rhythm disturbances, shock and death.
Symptoms of mild benzodiazepine overdose include drowsiness, lack of coordination, lowered reflexes, confusion and sleepiness. In more serious overdose, symptoms may include lack of balance, muscle weakness, low blood pressure, weak and slow breathing, seizures and coma.
If an overdose is taken it's important to get to a hospital straight away. This will minimise long term damage.
Some POMs and OTCs cause dependency, ie you can get hooked. This is true of sleeping tablets and codeine. Sometimes people need to be weaned off slowly as the effects of sudden withdrawal can be really nasty or even dangerous.
Death rates (2008)
antidepressants: 381
methadone: 378
paracetamol: 260
sleeping tablets (benzodiazepines): 230
codeine/dihydrocodeine: 149
Tramadol: 83
Zopliclone/Zolpidem: 36
aspirin: 15
Barbiturates: 13
(Figures quoted are from the Office of National Statistics and refer to England and Wales. Deaths are counted if the drug was in someone's body at time of death, whether or not other drugs were also present)