Answer

Dear XXXXXXXXX,

Combunox is not known to increase a persons risk to suicide. The drug is a combination of Ibuprofen with a narcotic like drug to be used as a pain reliever.

The medication has narcotic like properties, so it is a depressant and can lower the heart rate, especially in circumstance where blood loss is great. (more about that in a moment).

The pain relieving properties may make it easier for someone to cut themselves, as their sensitivity to the pain will be less.

The medication is not what kept him alive. What kept him alive was that this was a suicide jester and attention seeking behavior. The young man is in some sort of emotional pain and needs help dealing with it. He is asking for help.

Suicide by wrist slicing seems messy. One cup of blood goes a long way, but is not sufficient to cause someone to die. It is unusual for someone who slices their wrist to bleed as much as a cup. A cup of blood in a bathtub will make the room appear like it is blood splattered all over and really gruesome.

Now this person apparently attempted to hang themselves, which is a lot more dangerous than the wrist slicing, but I am not sure the person was doing the hanging in a way that would result in suicide (actual death). I would like to know more about how this happened. Most deaths, even suicide by hanging and scarfing are by accident. The danger is that people will suffocate themselves or break a vertebrae.

Most often however, in these circumstances, the person probably passed out before he could die and his body took over in natural ways to keep him alive.

(note: even people who have accidentally amputated their wrists will not generally die if taken to the hospital within two to four hours).

Most people who cut their wrists do so in a cross wize fashion or angled fashion. The ligature of the wrists protects the arteries sufficiently, that even if they are sliced, they will immediately contract and close off the flow of blood sufficiently to prevent a total bleed out. However, after a few hours the arteries relax, and then they start to bleed again. And, once a body has lost sufficient blood, they would pass out, the bleeding with slow again or stop, and the body would the go into shock as it tries to conserve blood loss.

In my 28 years of military medicine, and having witnessed several suicide attempts, and treated several dozen, I have never seen a successful one.

SUMMARY:

1. The drug did not contribute to the tendency for suicide.
2. The drug could have made it less painful to cut himself.
3. If he tried to OD on the drug, then it became one of three ways he was jestering suicide.
4. The drug did not contribute to his survival, unless it caused him to pass out before the hanging became successful.
5. The wrist cutting is not a definitive suicide attempt but primarily a jester.
6. The hanging was a jesture, but it is dangerous and people sometimes die that way by accident.

 

Expert:	Ed Johnson
Pos. Feedback:	99.2 %
Accepts:
Answered:	9/27/2006

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