Bear Down Wildcats

Getting dusty in here.

What a great gesture! Gonna be emotional at the stadium on Saturday night.

BEAR DOWN!

Even more tragic that he died of a presumably avoidable bad combination of painkiller and anti-anxiety meds as opposed to some undiscovered health issue. I imagine one or more medical providers will find themselves defending their prescriptions . . .

Do we know yet if they were both prescribed?

So sad

Need CST or Hoya to comment on this.

Just terrible. Any chance this could of been a suicide? I wonder how many of the players are being prescribed these kind of pills?

Wow, he did have some very serious underlying issues. Hypertension and dilated cardiomyopathy as his age is not good. He was probably prescribed the opioid to relieve the pain from that if it was a known diagnosis. He also had pneumonia which probably exacerbated the respiratory depressant effects of the opioid. This is sad to say but with those issues he had he was not going to live to be an old man.

tgrumpy2 wrote:Wow, he did have some very serious underlying issues. Hypertension and dilated cardiomyopathy as his age is not good. He was probably prescribed the opioid to relieve the pain from that if it was a known diagnosis. He also had pneumonia which probably exacerbated the respiratory depressant effects of the opioid. This is sad to say but with those issues he had he was not going to live to be an old man.

I'm no doctor, but the first thing I thought of was that a decent part of those issues can be associated with excess weight. Hypertension, etc, have a significant link (again, in my Google based opinion) to carrying extra weight.

I read a SI article a few years back discussing offensive lineman on the college and pro level and the tremendous pressure they are under to keep their weight high. The article detailed forcing down high calorie meals to stay above 300 and stay heavy enough to do their job.

The kid's death is tragic however you look at it. I couldn't help but wonder if being an o lineman and having pressure to keep his weight up contributed to the risk factors.

If both were prescribed, and he disclosed one on the patient sheet if the other was diagnosed by another doctor, then, yeah...this is bad.

But that is highly unlikely. They were likely obtained at least in part illicitly. Or, if he was looking to get some benzos and was on an opiate, he likely wouldn't disclose. A pharmacist should see the combination and counsel, but there are circumstances where both could be used.

Addiction specialists talk about how rare it is for a person to OD on an opiate that is in pill form...heroin is a crap shoot because of purity/cut issues, but people who use/abuse pills know their tolerance and unless they want to die, very rarely waste stash to go so far beyond their typical high that they can die. Most of the time, an opioid involved in a death is mixed with an benzo or alcohol, and the CNS depresses to the point of them just not breathing anymore.

Sad. Sad. Sad. So sad, and typical lately. We need harm reduction, because the theory of "addicts are losers who need out of the gene pool" is proving to be even less accurate than it ever was in this epidemic. It is easy to wind up in this situation....

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

tgrumpy2 wrote:Wow, he did have some very serious underlying issues. Hypertension and dilated cardiomyopathy as his age is not good. He was probably prescribed the opioid to relieve the pain from that if it was a known diagnosis. He also had pneumonia which probably exacerbated the respiratory depressant effects of the opioid. This is sad to say but with those issues he had he was not going to live to be an old man.

I'm no doctor, but the first thing I thought of was that a decent part of those issues can be associated with excess weight. Hypertension, etc, have a significant link (again, in my Google based opinion) to carrying extra weight.

I read a SI article a few years back discussing offensive lineman on the college and pro level and the tremendous pressure they are under to keep their weight high. The article detailed forcing down high calorie meals to stay above 300 and stay heavy enough to do their job.

The kid's death is tragic however you look at it. I couldn't help but wonder if being an o lineman and having pressure to keep his weight up contributed to the risk factors.

Zach had more issues losing weight/getting in shape from what I have been told then keeping it on. So tragic

Awful, been following since yesterday and will weigh in more when I have some time this evening.

Terrible, terrible terrible. On one hand if he was getting this illicitly, I would investigate his phone to identify his dealer; if prescribed by a doc, yikes, major lawsuit coming on the doc.

Rarely is oxymorphone prescribed in an out patient setting and only under very strict criteria.

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

tgrumpy2 wrote:Wow, he did have some very serious underlying issues. Hypertension and dilated cardiomyopathy as his age is not good. He was probably prescribed the opioid to relieve the pain from that if it was a known diagnosis. He also had pneumonia which probably exacerbated the respiratory depressant effects of the opioid. This is sad to say but with those issues he had he was not going to live to be an old man.

I'm no doctor, but the first thing I thought of was that a decent part of those issues can be associated with excess weight. Hypertension, etc, have a significant link (again, in my Google based opinion) to carrying extra weight.

I read a SI article a few years back discussing offensive lineman on the college and pro level and the tremendous pressure they are under to keep their weight high. The article detailed forcing down high calorie meals to stay above 300 and stay heavy enough to do their job.

The kid's death is tragic however you look at it. I couldn't help but wonder if being an o lineman and having pressure to keep his weight up contributed to the risk factors.

Matter how you tell it, its tragic and we certainly mourn the loss. You are absolutely right about the weight. Its the curse of D1 linemen. He probably had a genetic predisposition to the hypertension and it went unchecked and got worse as he got bigger. But the hypertrophy and cardiomyopathy says it had been going on awhile.

I'm not ready to throw Zach under the bus and say he had gotten these drugs illegally. Oxymorphone is commonly prescribed for moderate to severe pain when its expected the pain will persist. It comes in an extended release form and the most common medicine mistake at home is taking your medicine and forgetting you took it and taking it again. From the amount in his blood stream it would appear that's what he did. And there is a good chance the prescribing doctor never knew he was taking Xanax to boot and if he went to a different pharmacy they might not know either. It was a bad combination of events and it led to a tragic death and it sort of leaves us breathless.

I believe HIPAA forbids it, but it would be life saving for some people if there was a common database where every pharmacy and doctor could connect to.

Perhaps the team doctor prescribed the pain medication, and his family physician the Xanax.

Merkin wrote:I believe HIPAA forbids it, but it would be life saving for some people if there was a common database where every pharmacy and doctor could connect to.

Perhaps the team doctor prescribed the pain medication, and his family physician the Xanax.

Actually Merk, that is in the works. May be a few years off if they can work out the HIPPA issues but its in the works

tgrumpy2 wrote:

Merkin wrote:I believe HIPAA forbids it, but it would be life saving for some people if there was a common database where every pharmacy and doctor could connect to.

Perhaps the team doctor prescribed the pain medication, and his family physician the Xanax.

Actually Merk, that is in the works. May be a few years off if they can work out the HIPPA issues but its in the works

It already exists in california, in fact Jerry Brown just signed it into law that every doc has to check it before prescribing controlled substances and document it.

CURES database. Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System
California’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

https://oag.ca.gov/cures" target="_blank

I have been accessing this multiple times a week going back to 2012 (sans the time spent in North Carolina obviously)

There is no reason he should be given oxymorphone, outside of recovering from surgical disease and severe chronic pain such as end stage malignancy.

it is NOT a chronic pain med. Knowing what I know, if my son died having been prescribed that medication, I would bring a serious malpractice lawsuit. and I would win in a jury of my peers.

Mind you, I not throwing Zach under the bus here, RIP. This is all on who prescribed him this medication without appropriate management and followup. and in the setting of pneumonia none the less, Jesus.

Benzos plus potent opioids are not within standard of care and are not supported by evidence.

I suspect there is a discussion under the surface waiting to be had about painkillers in college football. IIRC, a player at USC had a heart issue that was supposed to be linked to a commonly used injectable painkiller.

I was prescribed Alprazolam four years ago by my G.P. to combat some waking-up tremors I was having.

Having been raised a Christian Scientist, I was pretty anti-pill to begin with so ended up maybe taking five out of the bottle in two years. The decommissioning effect sneaks up on you, then just kind of surges over you.

Combine that with a painkiller and I imagine the effect could very well be paralytic and shut down your respiratory system in large enough doses.

Detectives took photos of five prescription bottles found in Hemmila’s backpack, none of which were alprazolam or oxymorphone, according to department officials.

The investigative report showed at least three of the prescription bottles had another person’s name on the label, but the names were redacted.

I know in this day and age of information we have so much at our fingertips and we seem to want to know everything. In Zach's case, yea the police need to know some things to make sure there was no foul play and yes family needs to know but sometimes there are things I'm sorry I know. I would simply like to remember Zach as an Arizona football player that tragically died way before his time.

tgrumpy2 wrote:I know in this day and age of information we have so much at our fingertips and we seem to want to know everything. In Zach's case, yea the police need to know some things to make sure there was no foul play and yes family needs to know but sometimes there are things I'm sorry I know. I would simply like to remember Zach as an Arizona football player that tragically died way before his time.

I feel the same way. No matter what, it was an incredible tragedy.

Don't give prescription drugs to friends.