Darren Kavininoky on set of Dr. Drew with Jasmine Simpkins, Lisa Guerrero on set at HLN Dr. Drew

May 2, 2016–Los Angeles, California–Darren Kavinoky joins Dr. Drew on HLN to discuss Prince estate, health condition, and reports of prescription pain killers allegedly found on the music legend.

Dr. Drew explains, “What we’re talking about is something called odynophagia, which is painful swallowing. Right? Isn’t that what we’re hearing? So it really isn’t a soar throat per se. …Pain swallowing is the esophagus, maybe the stomach. So when you hear about somebody having difficulty taking solids and spicy foods–remember they said it was some sort of peppered bisque he couldn’t eat–that to me, only a couple of things really do that.”

Dr. Drew

One is a esophagitis, some sort of terrible erosive esophagitis, where the stomach acid gets up into the esophagus and stomach. Number two would be something more serious like an esophageal cancer. …Number three is something called esophageal candidiasis, which these days is pretty common. Which is a yeast infection of the esophagus and we see that with HIV patients very commonly, also other cancer patients. …The feeling here, some kind of underlying medical problem.”

“I can pretty much guarantee we’re going to learn something from this autopsy,” predicts Dr. Drew. He adds, “And then Darren, we’ve been hearing that there have been no valid prescriptions for the opioids. The DEA is now involved in the investigation. You make anything of that?”

Darren Kavinoky

“Well, I do,” answers Darren Kavinoky. “And I actually link that to some of this eating we’ve been talking about because–I’m just a juris doctor not a medical doctor–so I can’t speak to some of these issues with eloquence the way that you can, but I know this…people that are dealing with addiction, and when we look at the context of that emergency plane landing and what has been coming out about the Percocet use, this may be somebody who was just trying to get his arms around his own addiction issues.”

Dr. Drew disagrees, “No. That’s a separate issue. Did you ever get so bad in your disease that you were taking liquids only?”

“Certainly I adjusted my diet so that I could continue in my disease,” answers Darren Kavinoky.

“That’s different than saying it hurts when I swallow can you give me something else,” responds Dr. Drew.

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