Dead at 34, mum who took cocaine to fight tinnitus
A MOTHER who suffered from tinnitus for 14 years died after overdosing on the cocaine she took to treat the condition, an inquest heard.
Claire Fielding, 34, had been regularly taking four grams of the drug along with half a bottle of wine as ‘self-medication’.
But she collapsed at home after suffering a heart attack and died in hospital.
Miss Fielding, a mother of two young children, had become agitated by hearing constant noises in her ears. An inquest heard the shop assistant had been ‘outgoing and bubbly’ but had retreated ‘into her shell’ because of the condition.
On July 22, Miss Fielding was taken ill at her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, and was seen coming down the stairs with blue lips, struggling to breathe and telling her partner to call an ambulance. She died at Royal Bolton Hospital.
Her boyfriend of 17 years, James Goodyear, 41, told the inquest: ‘She had hearing problems which deteriorated more recently. She also had problems with panic attacks and with her breathing. There were two or three occasions where she had struggled to breathe.
‘She did drink about half a bottle of wine most nights, regularly. She suffered from tinnitus and that’s what calmed her. It was this buzzing in her ears all the time.
‘I knew that she took cocaine at weekends sometimes. It was a form of self-medication for her. She was quite a private person really. She never really said what was going through her head.’
Mr Goodyear said that on the day Miss Fielding died, ‘she was gasping for breath and she said “ring an ambulance”.
‘Her lips had started to go blue but they had gone back to normal by the time the ambulance arrived. She wasn’t in a good state.’
Dr Anindita Paul, from the Royal Bolton, who had been treating Miss Fielding for her tinnitus, said her cocaine use was making the condition worse. Dr Paul said the drug – which she had been taking since 2002 – was causing toxic infection.
Miss Fielding was also referred to Bolton Drug and Alcohol Service where she was given some support, but her attendance was described as ‘intermittent’.
Lyndsey Price, from the service, told the inquest that Miss Fielding admitted to using up to four grams of cocaine a day, but had managed to reduce that to one to two grams, along with six units of alcohol a day – the equivalent to half a bottle of wine.
A post-mortem examination established that Miss Fielding died of sudden cardiac arrest as a result of cocaine use. Traces of the drug were found in her blood, leading a pathologist to believe Miss Fielding had taken cocaine either the night before her death or a large quantity the weekend before.
Recording a conclusion of a drugrelated death, Bolton assistant coroner Rachel Griffin said: ‘I hope that if any good can come out of Claire’s death it is a warning to others about the dangers of using cocaine.’
‘It was a form of self-medication’