Tom Petty's Death TMS Related?

It seems from this NYT article that Tom Petty's death by accidental drug overdose had a lot to do with the chronic pain he was experiencing as a result of extreme pressure he was placing on himself to perform during his recent grueling 40-city last tour:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/arts/music/tom-petty-cause-death-opioid-overdose.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FPetty%2C%20Tom&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection (Tom Petty Died From Accidental Drug Overdose Involving Opioids, Coroner Says)

You can just read between the lines how every ache and pain he developed resulted in a prescription for another pain drug. Particularly revealing are the references to his hip problems and attendant pain. A complete perfectionist with his music, you can see how as the pain increased he continued to force himself to perform propped up by a pharmacopoeia of opioid pain medications. Interesting too how Petty expired after completing his tour. Sounds a lot like what Steve Ozanich refers to as the "Calm after the storm" when everything you've been repressing surfaces and creates the perfect environment for a TMS flare up (or a drug overdose).

 

TMS or not it's a lot of pressure to be responsible for the entertainment and employment of so many people. The show must go on.... Lots of repression, I am sure and I think just about everyone has experienced the phenomenon SteveO describes to one degree or another. I think it's quite possible this happened, which may have led to changes in meds with synergistic deadly effects.

Also, there may be a classical conditioning element, as environmental tolerance can occur. When people take drugs or medications in a familiar environment (e.g. a tour bus) the environment itself can trigger the body to anticipate the drug and make physiological changes to maintain homeostasis (drug tolerance). In a novel environment (e.g. home) the same dose can be much more powerful in the absence of these conditioned environmental cues.

Huge respect for the guy. Check out the Bogdanovich documentary on Netflix!

 

Very perceptive observation about environmental factors that condition drug tolerance. So you think the usual dose on the tour bus could turn deadly after a return to the home environment? From what his daughter said, it sound as though Petty was dealing with pain pretty 24/7. You have to wonder though whether his flirtation with heroin after his divorce left him with a big tolerance for the opioids he was prescribed later on? Guess we'll never know now.

 

Entirely possible. It's a well documented phenomenon. If the opioids associated with the divorce were from several years earlier I would think the tolerance would have faded. Very sad and I can't help but think that the meds themselves contributed to his pain.

 

Again, very perceptive. I gather once certain chemical components found in opiods have integrated into your neural pathways, anytime you go off those drugs, the pain returns multiplied. It's like the opioid kills the pain but then makes it impossible to quit without having the pain come back. Vicious cycle, no doubt exasperated by docs who treat pain as a disease instead of a symptom! The price of the quick fix "cure" is way too high.

Speaking personally, I just noticed that the common topical steroid inhaler (Qvar) I'd been prescribed for my asthma, after habitual use spaced over 7 years, was causing the pain and tingles in my left leg and lower back, not to mention other symptoms like rashes and mysterious shoulder pain near my shoulder blade. Stop the steroid and the pain is receding rapidly. And the docs who prescribed it wanted me to use it all the time, two puffs per diem! Sounds like unless you're under the care of a really sauvy and observant internist, it would be a good idea to discontinue any medication after the symptoms it's been prescribed for have ceased.

 

I don't know about that. Some say that once you've become addicted to the White Lady, you're never really the same again. Not familiar with the neural chemical blue print, but people into junk say they can spot an addict out of a crowd years later. Something's changed permanently. Of course, you see the same thing with a "dry drunk" who's a recovering alcoholic. They behave like they're intoxicated without taking in any alcohol. Same could be true for junkies where ingrained behavioral programming works without any drug to stimulate it. I guess that's what they mean when they say, "It's become a way of life".

 

I am sure the memory of the effects is always there and can bring up cravings. I don't doubt that something has changed about them forever particularly in the dopaminergic reward circuits of the brain. Tolerance must be attenuated to some degree though because it's demonstrated even over short periods of time with the environmentally cued tolerance discussed above. In other words, tolerance and sensitization are dynamic by design, highly sensitive and always trying to bring the system back to a stable state (homeostasis). Although you may be onto something with the observation that some junkies look intoxicated years later. See the phenomenon of post-acute withdrawal if interested. But I think this would be the exception rather than the rule and Tom appeared to be a pretty healthy guy in interviews, etc.

I am sure there is plenty of research out there on the loss of tolerance. Let me know if you find anything.

In the mean time, clues here?

 

Yes. It's a lot of pressure to be the cog in the wheel that employs hundreds of people and brings $$ to each city.
He may have HAD to tour, as well. People always think rock stars have tons of money, but they often get taken advantage of very dramatically.
I think the pressure of having to build a tour, when he didn't really want to, was what put Michael Jackson over the edge, too.

Although, reading the article: a hip fracture and emphysema aren't really TMS, right?

 

You have to really look into that 'hip fracture' too I'd say. Osteoarthritis of the hip is often a TMS side issue. But Tom did have plenty of chronic pain symptoms as well.

 

Lou Reed's drug of choice was not heroin (although he wrote about it and those NYC addicts around Andy Warhol). Lou's real problem and the one he never really gave up I take it was chronic methamphetamine usage, which was what took out his liver and killed him. Never heard anything about Lou and chronic pain. Although you notice that Prince like Tom Petty had an ongoing problem with pain in his hip too. You do have to wonder whether the hip pain was exacerbated by the pain killing drugs used to treat it. Eric Clapton for example recently came down with sciatica in his legs that he blames on nerve damage caused by his earlier heroin habit. Seems as though the drugs "light up" the nerve pathways in such a way that psychological and emotional forces can cause pain. Makes you into a living TMS test bed.

 

On Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS), see:

https://www.addictionsandrecovery.org/post-acute-withdrawal.htm (Post-Acute Withdrawal Symptoms and Relapse Prevention Strategies)

Some more on PAWS:

https://drugabuse.com/library/post-acute-withdrawal-syndrome/ (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome)

Makes me wonder about just how long it'll take for me to get over using Qvar (per doctor's orders) for the last 7 years! Of course, I'm certain all my aches and pains were conditioned by the TMS emotional repression process, I can't help but feel steroid use was driving my central nervous system too, especially when I note the decrease in pain symptoms by simply stopping for a week to ten days. Still way too soon to jump to any firm conclusion though.

 

Yes, I remember Lou referencing speed heavily on the Berlin album and later Songs for Drella. I was under the impression that he had been sober for decades but I could be wrong about that. I notice with many of these rock stars who abused drugs but have been sober for decades they still die a decade or so younger than most.

Interesting, maybe so. We know that TMS seeks out old injuries, vulnerabilities so this makes sense.

 

Yes, the more you learn about it, the more you begin to see TMS as a kind of universal process in the nerves, tendons, ligaments and nerve pathways. Really a diagram of how the mind-body works, something like one of those old medieval diagrams of Adam Kadmon, the universal man, that attempts to link the microcosm with the macrocosm, the below and the above.

If you study science and psychology too much, I guess you start to get mystical like Jung!

In his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Gabor Maté goes into some detail about the links between chronic pain and addiction:



That's where studying drug addiction can teach you quite a bit about how TMS operates, the dark forces beneath the surface of daily consciousness. Why some people try drugs, some people use drugs, and why some people are consumed by drugs.

 

Wow, great interview. He said so much in such a short amount of time. I can see some parallels with TMS and addiction. It's interesting that for many, self-soothing place such a central role in their (TMS) healing, something that may have been missing in some who had chaotic childhoods and go on to develop addiction. Sorry I haven't thought it all through (fuzzy brain from a migraine) but food for thought anyway.

 

Yes, the self-soothing aspects of TMS healing parallel an addict's craving for self-soothing too. Seeking out the serotonin they lacked for one reason or another? Interesting how one person takes a drug and doesn't feel compelled to take it again, but another person takes the same drug and goes way off the deep end. Maté believes the difference must lie in early childhood development and a sense of emptiness within. Think Eric Clapton says he was like that. First time he got drunk at a English country faire he wound up passing out, soiling his clothes, and waking up in the gutter. Then, he got right up and started at it again. He said it was like he had found himself! Clapton says he had tremendous identity issues because of his illegitimacy and the fact his step parents hid it from him. When he found out, he had an full blown addiction crisis that never stopped till he went through rehab.

Maté doesn't dispense hard-earned knowledge just to hear himself speak but because he feels compelled by his life experience to proclaim the truth.

 

Well said, Bruce. It all resonates with me. I can relate to Clapton. Not so much with alcohol but with an abusable medication that minutes after I took it I felt like myself for the first time. That turned out very badly for me over a decade and then a couple of years to recover. In graduate school as a part of my training I took a personality test and scored very high on a scale of somatization. It all goes back to those early experiences for me. Temperament also enters into it to as I fit the description of "highly sensitive."

Just a couple of years ago in mid-life I was entering a supermarket with my central sensitization issues and was overwhelmed by the stimulation. I spontaneously started talking myself through it and it made a big difference. That's something that no one had ever done for me and I'd never done for myself. My hope with TMS treatment approaches and calming practices is that I can get my set point back to where I feel like me again sans meds.

I can't wait to read both Mate books ("when the body"... and "Ghosts"...)

 

With Eric Clapton, it just didn't stay with alcohol but went on to any intoxicant. Alcohol abuse was only the first gateway.

mm718 I've read both those Maté books and they're both real game changers.