Woman died after ‘self-medicating’ with painkillers
Adrienne Crowder suffered Ménière’s disease, which caused her to lose her balance, fall over and injure herself.
She was found dead at her home in East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, last April with toxic levels of morphine in her system. An unsigned and undated police report said packets of the painkiller co-codamol were found on the floor next to 44-year-old Miss Crowder.
Although 160 tablets were missing from a haul of 220 pills, the inquest was told officers did not investigate where the drugs had come from or where they went.
It emerged in the three weeks before her death, that Miss Crowder, originally from Bolton, Lancashire, had been in a crash and needed crutches to get around.
The hearing in Bolton was told former foster parent Miss Crowder had moved to Scotland to be with her new partner.
She had been diagnosed with epilepsy at 19 and in 2007 was told she had heart condition dilated cardiomyopathy. She began taking medication for it, frustrated that it hampered her sporty lifestyle. More recently she was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease, which caused her to suffer from vertigo, hearing loss and tinnitus and also suffered sciatica.
Her sister, Joanne Howcroft, told the inquest: ‘Her diagnosis had an effect on her quality of life and she gradually descended into depression and was struggling to cope sometimes. Our mum has family in Scotland so she wasn’t by herself.
‘I think she did have a high tolerance to pain medication and she could have been self-medicating. Adrienne was making plans for the future. She had her dog Pepe, and she would never have left him.’
In a statement, Miss Crowder’s GP, Dr John Gum, said
‘Effect on her quality of life’
she visited him several times in the six months before death for repeated falls. During her final appointment she expressed that she was feeling stressed about moving house.
A post-mortem examination in Scotland showed Miss Crowder had therapeutic levels of pregabalin, fluoxetine, zopiclone, diazepam, codeine, co-codamol and an antihistamine in her bloodstream.
Pathologist Dr Emile Salmo, who carried out a second post mortem in England, said: ‘There was a higher than therapeutic level of morphine that could have caused or contributed to the death.’
Recording an open verdict, assistant coroner Tim Brennan said: ‘Mystery still envelops the precise circumstances of Adrienne’s tragic demise.’