Morphine in hospice patients
Common Questions and Answers about Morphine in hospice patients
avinza
Signs include slurred speech and difficulty in balance. Is this common for cancer patients or something more. She is taking morphine for the pain, but they seem to think it isn't that. She didn't take any the last couple of days, yet the symptoms are still there. I know that every person is different when it comes to cancer, but what should we expect in the comming weeks as the chemo has stopped. Could she feasibly live for another few months in the amount of pain she's in?
no and if he was suffering i dont know, the night before he was fine, granted his health was getting worse and worse, the fine line these days is would you want to see him suffer any longer or end his misery , well most would think it is ok to assist a person to not suffer, i believe i dont have nor does anyone have that power to take or assist one in his deathl. ONLY God does. so my question is , in hospice, is this what they do?
But her vitals are stable and the only pain she refers to is that of her right side limbs, which she has been complaining of since her stroke 18 months ago. But in the past couple of weeks Hospice has decided that this pain/discomfort in her right leg/arm requires 190 mg of (recatally administered) morphine q 12 hrs. My mom has been suffering, we all have, but at least she was able to be present, as much as she could. She was able to sit and watch television...
I am caring for my Father in law that has this disease. Hospice says he is atypical with his disease.He was diagnosed with ALS in 2002. I have taken care of him (Primary) as well as my husband and now my son for the last 3 years and Hospice a year and a half. He has no use of his legs or hands since the first 6months. He was in a Nursing home but we brought him home In the last few months I have watched his urine change color to amber then bloody looking to normal yellow. He coughs at times.
your son would have had to first be removed from hospice status, the morphine discontinued, etc - in order to even be considered...and that would be with no guarantees of course. It's a pretty tall order...even under the best of circumstances. It sounds as though your son was likely already too sick for that to have happened. I hope that you can find peace in knowing that you did all that you could...
She is very, very frail and has been in hospice care for 3 years. She has been on 150mg of Tramadol for over 8 years. She is suffering from severe myoclonus and seratonin toxicity and hospice wants to take her off Tramadol and replace it with something else. I can find no info at all on withdrawal and tapering protocol in elderly debilitated Alzheimer's patients. My mom can't speak or communicate and I am absolutely horrified at what she may experience.
One of my regrets was the night before she passed, I made the decision for hospice in home care without her acknowledgment because she was in and out of sleep. that night I also left early to go and give my husband a break with the kids. The next morning she passed away at 6 am. I tried hard explaining that the doctors didnt want to do any more chemo and she said no I want to live. I play those words in mind every minuet of the day and it hurts badly. Its just part of life.
She was fired and I have since come down on what before this was called a cadd box which housed liquid Dilaudid in huge quantities. I am accustomed to what a detox is and went for it and ran from the hospice situation - though I am dying of a painful rare and slow disease. I am proud of myself and now before she leaves she converts me from the Dilaudid (mind you 32mg per hour!!!!!) Don't know how i am alive and kicked it.
Have faith in your convictions. And WHY does it matter if she is addicted to morphine at this stage in her life?
I'm so sorry for both of you. If you father's doctors have indeed said the case is terminal, then it's time for hospice care. Medicare/ Medicaid will pay for it but you need his primary care doctor to lead the charge to make the arrangements. Hospice can be either in the patient's home or in a nursing facility. Pick up the phone and call the primary care doc tomorrow.
Even if your dad is sent home, try to remember that you cannot cure his alcoholism.
I know she will be in pain no matter what, but will I be able to ease that pain for her? We will have hospice people coming once a week to help, we'll get feeding line, IV etc. But she is all bloated with ascites, she can barely breath. She is not able to eat any more because tumor grew all over her stomach and other organs, her bile ducts are blocked and bile is drained through outside tube.
I guess what I am trying to make sure is that we considered all the options.
doctor,
my wife was scheduled for 6 chemo treatments. she began them in jan. & had 3. she is now as of several weeks ago wearing 2 morphine patches, this week the doctor said the chemo is doing her no good & stopped treatments, she had a picc line put in & hospice is in the process of being set up to come to our home. there is a place in florida & utah that does some type of laser treatment & focuses on each individual tumor.
She panicked called her local GP,called in Hospice and substituted haldol,morphine and vallium for her heart medictions in one day.My mother was not in pain.This was 5/31/2007 one day before my return.On 5/3 before she knew I was coming the cardiologist said she was fine and continued her medications and to come back in four months.I took her to the hospital and my sisterbehind my back refused to allow her to be medicated same thing on discharge.
Morphine is preferred for the treatment of COPD because a doctor can better control its effect on breathing, however, both morphine and methadone work in similar ways -- it is just that methadone suppresses the breathing longer. At end of life, it doesn't matter much which medication you use.
If your husband had an allergy to morphine, then methadone is definitely the proper medication to give.
Death is not often a pleasant experience, especially death from lung cancer.
hot stomach, loss of muscle tone, lack of appetite, and lack of energy. She is at home on hospice care, stage IV. She was diagnosed on June 12, 2009. Her home nurse is nice and sweet and tells her she is doing well. Hospice sends morphine and constipation medication. Both of which she does not need and does not use.
It seems she has been balking at taking an alternative pain med (morphine) as she thought it would signal the end. Thankfully she has a terrific hospice doctor/nurse team and they convinced her to take very small doses as needed and it made a dramatic change. She took enough just to take the edge off and we had a great conversation today. She is still declining but I believe she feels it is on "her terms".
I actuall worked Wednesday and left for Smokies. We ended up In Helen, Ga. He was in awe. I pushed him in the wheelchair down to to picnic area for awhile, and neither of us said anything.Thursday, his G-Tude came out. and I had no way to give him pain meds . I had to give them by mouth. Luckily he didn't need ANY while were there. Went uo to a little town and bought firewood. He had wanted to stay at a place on the water and have a real fire in the fireplace.
My mom is dying from anapalastic thyroid cancer. She has been on a morphine pump for a little over a week. She stopped food and water intake a couple of days ago. Her kidneys and liver have started to fail. (this we know from information from our wonderful hospice nurse) I was wondering how long on average a person will survive once their food and water intake stops?
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