TydalWave
Brutally Self-Aware
- Sep 20, 2022
- 436
I have seen this article cited on a few posts now, and I don't understand how these conclusions from this case study are being directly applied to SN. This involves a completely different lethal agent (digoxin) which has a different effect on the body from what I understand.Regarding the removal of propanolol, Dr Nitschke may have been influenced by the replacement of propanolol by amitriptyline in the American Clinicians' Academy on Medical Aid in Dying's (ACAMAID) 4-drug lethal mixture.
The data compiled by the ACAMAID in December 2019 suggest that amitriptyline leads to a quicker death: 90% of patients died under 4 hours (average 1.1 h, max 4.4 h) as opposed to 81% with propanolol (average 1.3 h, max 5.1 h).
Consistent with this, Dr Nitschke explains that tachycardia may lead to a faster death "presumably because of cardiac arrest", similarly to the ACAMAID ("Propanolol from D-DMP2 was switched to amitriptyline from D-DMA because: In aid in dying, tachyarrhythmias are more quickly lethal than bradyarrhythmias").
In August 2020, Dr Lonny Shavelson of the ACAMAID recommended retiring DDMP2 altogether in favor of DDMA.
When ingested at high doses digoxin toxicity causes irregularly heart beat with the most common cause of death being by cardiac arrythmia (National Library of Medicine). By definition, this is when the heart beats too fast (tachyardia) or too slow (bradychardia). So the use of propranolol will clearly have a direct impact on the speed of this process.
I just don't see how the same conclusion can be directly applied to sodium nitrite poisoning. Sodium nitrite reacts with blood to create methemoglobin, which deprives your body of oxygen as concentrations increase in your bloodstream. The hearts job is to pump blood and oxygen, so tachyardia is a natural reaction to a lack of oxygen. High doses of propranolol would then combat your bodies natural defense mechanism to this and potentially accelerate the deprivation of oxygen.
I am not advising anyone either way. I just think if you are going to cite conclusions from a case study for a completely different drug, you should atleast prefice it as your opinion and explain why it is relevant to SN. Personally, I am still planning on using propranolol in my exit plan. I'm happy to share more of my reasoning over PM if anyone out there is stuck in the same boat as me.
Digitalis Toxicity - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov