Heath Ledger Found Dead: Possible Accidental Sleep Aid Overdose

Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment yesterday afternoon.

Heath Ledger was an Australian actor who recently passed away. It is reported that a massage therapist and a housekeeper entered Ledger's room at 3:26 Eastern Standard Time to find him nude, face down, and unconscious. Police noticed that there were sleeping pills on Ledger's nightstand table as well as in his bathroom, though they do not believe his death was a suicide or the cause of foul play. It is also reported that Heath Ledger was taking the prescription sleep aid, Ambien.

The official autopsy results will not be available for approximately ten days, according to Wikipedia.

Ambien (Zolpidem) is a prescription sleep aid in the class of medication known as hypnotics or sedatives. According to Yahoo Health, Ambien relaxes the body and mind and causes sleep by affecting chemicals in the brain that become unbalanced, which can result in insomnia, waking up frequently during the night, or waking up too early in the morning.

Ambien is typically meant for short-term use; however, it can be used for long periods of time when monitored by your physician with regular physician visits.

Personally, I have taken Ambien due to the difficulty I possess getting to sleep at night. I took Ambien over a few months' time, and I found that there were advantages and disadvantages of this sleep medication for me.

Ambien helped me sleep. In fact, I fell asleep very quickly after I took the medication. It also helped me stay asleep, as it claims to do. However, Ambien put me in such a deep sleep, that it was extremely difficult for me to wake up the next morning. Additionally, if someone tried to wake me up by touching me or talking to me, I wouldn't respond at all. It even worried one friend so much that he had to check my breathing to make sure I was still alive! I also felt very drowsy during the day as a result of the medication, and this side-effect did not wear off over time.

I also experienced another side-effect of Ambien - amnesia - the loss of memory after taking Ambien. Once, after taking a dose of Ambien, I fell asleep clothed and woke up nude. I had no recollection as to how that happened. There were also times when I had conversations in the morning, fell back asleep, and had no memory of them.

Finally, I also experienced severe headaches over the time in which I was taking Ambien for my sleep difficulties.

Other side-effects of Ambien, which I did not experience include: dizziness, nausea, vomiting, constipation, vivid or strange dreams, and muscle pain.

Given the information we know about Ambien, some reporters, such as those at the New York Times, are hypothesizing that Ledger's death was an accidental overdose. Given my own experience with Ambien and the deep sleep it put me in, I believe that the accidental overdose hypothesis is plausible. However, only the autopsy can tell us what the true cause of death was for Ledger, which won't be available for another week and a half.

Sources:

Wikipedia: Heath Ledger:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_Ledger

Yahoo Health: Zolpidem:
http://health.yahoo.com/sleep-medications/zolpidem/healthwise--d00910a1.html

New York Times: The Death of Heath Ledger:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/actor-heath-ledger-is-found-dead/