Trigger Warning Advice/insights request: My younger brother died, and I just found his death certificate

[DreamofWinter]

So my younger brother died a couple of years ago now, aged 26. He was found on his sofa, looking like he'd just fallen asleep watching a movie. All that our mother told us was that he had taken an accidental overdose of something (she framed it as him having some medicine for pain, he forgot he'd taken a dose, took it again, and it was enough to kill him -- I've never believed this).
I just found his death certificate and it says that he died after taking a combination of morphine, sertraline, and amitriptyline. I obviously know what morphine is, but no idea about the others. Can anybody offer any insights into what they are, how easy it is to overdose on them, etc.? I'd appreciate any information at all.

 

[daturetard]

Amitriptyline is an antidepressant used off label for insomnia, i beleive its a tricyclic. My mom uses them for cluster headaches. Some abuse potential, but more likely he was prescribed it and it poorly interacted with the other (ssri) antidepressant, sertraline, (aka zoloft). The combination of two antidepressants can cause serotonin syndrome, along with increased serotonin from opioids.. As far as the morphine goes he may well have overdone it on that and that have been the primary cause. Ssris can exasperate cns depression IIRC. Sorry for your loss. Hope this might have cleared a little up. You can go to drugs.com and check interactions between the three.

 

[DreamofWinter]

Amitriptyline is an antidepressant used off label for insomnia, i beleive its a tricyclic. My mom uses them for cluster headaches. Some abuse potential, but more likely he was prescribed it and it poorly interacted with the other (ssri) antidepressant, sertraline, (aka zoloft). The combination of two antidepressants can cause serotonin syndrome, along with increased serotonin from opioids.. As far as the morphine goes he may well have overdone it on that and that have been the primary cause. Ssris can exasperate cns depression IIRC. Sorry for your loss. Hope this might have cleared a little up. You can go to drugs.com and check interactions between the three.

Thanks. Yeah, a bit of time has passed. He had a history with drug abuse, so hearing the news was shocking but not too surprising. I just never bought the official story of him accidentally double dosing, and thought most likely he would have taken a bit too much of morphine for the buzz

 

[fairnymph]

Amitriptyline potentiates opiates too. But tbh, if he only had those 3 drugs in his system, it could well have been intentional. It’s not all that easy to OD on morphine, even on those other meds. Unless he wasn’t very intelligent.