The common perception that Sunanda Pushkar ,52 years-old, whose body was found in a suite in Hotel Leela between 4 and 6 pm on Friday died of a‘drug overdose’ has been denied as the experts believed that intake of huge quantity of alprazolam tablets, found inside her room, alone cannot result in her death.
“Alprazolam tablet overdose alone can’t result in death of any individual” stated a Senior psychiatrists, who regularly deal with depression and hypertension patients. He also stated that the patient who takes a prescribed amount of this drug regularly develops more appetite for its consumption and is likely to get less affected.
It look as if this opinion opens up one more line of investigation which could be whether other drugs were taken along with Alprax or if there were external causes for her “sudden unnatural death”, as the preliminary report states.
Dr Arvind Gupta, who runs a specialized psychiatry clinic in Delhi said ,“It highly unlikely that a person would die with alprazolam overdose. There could be withdrawal symptoms or high level anxiety with other side effects, but chances of death are very very low,”. Dr Gupta, on the other hand added that if alprax consumed with other drugs at the same time, it creates deadly combination.
A senior doctor at AIIMS, who didn’t wish to be named, stated, “Even if an individual takes 15 tablets, he or she at the most will sleep for few more hours.”
Detailed search of the suite was conducted by the Delhi police and found two empty strips of alprazolam (.5mg) tablets and a third half consumed packet there. This finding led to media speculations that death was caused due to ‘drug overdose.’
However, Police has remained uncommunicative about the incident and are awaiting SDM report to conduct further investigations. Sunanada was reportedly suffering from TB and an immune disorder called lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the body’s immune system becomes hyperactive and attacks normal, healthy tissue.
Dr Pankaj Kumar, who is a consulting Psychiatrist at various leading hospitals in the capital states that” Alprazolam mostly results in addiction and thus we avoid prescribing this drug. However, its overdose alone cannot result in death. Even if a patient takes more than 15 tablets in a day, he or she may still not feel any problem,”.
However, he cautions that immunity of an individual plays a role in how drug will react in a particular body, adding, “alcohol or any other central nervous system depressant could be a deadly combination with alprazolam.”
Alprazolam belongs to a group of drugs called benzodiazepines.Alprazolam is used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and anxiety caused by depression.Overdose symptoms may include extreme drowsiness, confusion, muscle weakness, loss of balance or coordination, feeling light-headed, and fainting.
The adult dosage of alprazolam as per the regular recommendations by a psychiatrist range from minimum of three tablets of 0.5mg to maximum nine tablets per day.
Dr Zaid Ahmed Wani, consultant psychiatrist and associate professor at Government Medical College, Srinagar said,“Someone who is taking alprazolam first or second time in huge quantity may need to get his stomach washed. But, a regular consumer will only have regular symptoms of extreme drowsiness and gastric problems.”
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