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Morphine for the Dying
- Thread starter Windwalker
- Start date
NDE is not an argument from ignorance. It's an argument from experience. Sorry.
I've been given Morphine on 2 occasions. It doesn't alter you that much.
It doesn't make you pain free either. Just makes you not care you're in pain to begin with.
It doesn't make you pain free either. Just makes you not care you're in pain to begin with.
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I guess it depends how much pain one can take,a stomachs wound in ww2 would be better with morphine but a person expiring of old age would probably not,circumstances would dictate the neccessaties of giving morphine or any other drug.
I agree totally.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
But Christine, how can you truly claim to be a mother if you did not go through all of the pain and risk of childbirth? I think that the availability of other modern medicine may have tainted the event too. At the very most you should have only had a poorly trained midwife that would yell "push" at you occasionally after ushering your husband out of the room.
(Do I even need a smiley to show that my tongue was firmly in my cheek?)
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I do like the fact that in the US, and I am sure in Europe, the opposite is true. One can have written instructions for the care one wants. There are official forms that a person can fill out and they must be followed. And I was very suspicious of the one that I posted earlier. I forgot the proper terminology for it. In the US it is called an Advance Directive. It is filled out when one still has complete control of one's faculties. If one waits too long after Alzheimer's sets in for example it can be overturned. But one can tell a doctor what can and cannot be done to keep one alive in extreme circumstances:
Creating an Advance Directive: A Step-by-Step Guide - Death With Dignity
If one does not want morphine, and the OP is perfectly welcome to make that decision for himself he could do so. If you wanted not only morphine to be available, but to have them fight for your life as long as they could, that can be part of it too. I think that it gets to the point where most say: Yes, give me drugs to ease the pain if needed. And no, do not hook me up to every sort of device possible.
If one does not have such a notice here they will assume that you want the full boat of drugs and whatever means would keep you alive. I think that the middle road of when it is time, just help me go painlessly is the best option for most.
Spirit of Light
Be who ever you want
Personally, I would try to avoid the use of any drugs if possible, but it would be totally wrong of me to ask others to do the same, I can not say if the drugs would have any effect on the spirit after one has died from this physical world.
And my tongue in cheek says, you try passing a rugby ball through your butt
I haven't read everyone's responses in this thread yet, but I would think it would be up to the individual to decide. In my own view, if I can still walk and do for myself, then I'll stick it out through whatever pain there might be. But if I'm dying, bed-ridden, no chance for recovery - then I don't see that I would be experiencing anything remotely close to the fully experiencing life. Pain brings about great duress and can cloud the mind even more so than drugs, especially if it's severe enough pain.
If one uses chemicals to deaden or lessen the pain, then the mind may actually be calmer and more lucid than when under great pain. I've never had morphine, so I don't know how it acts upon the mind. I've taken prescription pain killers in the past, and one can still think and form thoughts. It's not as if one goes completely out of one's mind.
Well, I don't know, but I do believe my mother would've preferred not to be totally out of her mind from all the painkillers they had her on when she was dying. So you make a good point.
Alienistic
Anti-conformity
If there were any kind of “conscious” or “spiritual” control over the process of physical or bodily death, I would personally want to be as sober-minded as possible, and think of and prepare for all possible scenarios upon physical death. Even if nothing were to happen. I don’t know the effects of something like morphine having over ones ability to think though, rather than easing some felt bodily pain.
There are several models.
If you're for resurrection, you'll maybe get Paul's Mark II body which is immortal and incorruptible; and I assume / guess that an incorruptible body is unaffected by drugs, or just about anything else.
If you're for soul, well, the soul shucks the body and all its vices and enters into the joys of immateriality. And ─ leaving aside the technical questions like how an immaterial body can sense its environment, locate let alone relate to other immaterial beings, feel any emotions in the absence of biochemistry, do anything (written both do anything, and do anything) ─ so (I'd expect) it will also shuck all the palliative drugs.
If you're for reincarnation, as I understand it babies are born with no more drugs in their system than their mothers have, so you won't be worse off in palliative care.
And if like me you think death is the end, goodnight, good luck and thanks, then you'll trust your medicos to see you out as gently as it can decently be done.
So if the drugs are available and they'll help, I'd say that's the way to go.
QuestioningMind
Well-Known Member
I find some of the assumptions you make to be very interesting. Why do you think that narcotics would 'cloud the mind' to this transition to a greater degree than excruciating pain? If you've ever experienced truly unendurable pain then you know that when in such a state you're incapable of focusing on anything other than the endless agony. It is not a state of mind that's conducive to clear thinking or gleaning valuable life lessons. When experiencing agonizing levels of pain you can't even form coherent thoughts. I'd say that even a mind doped up on morphine has a better chance of realizing important insights when on the verge of death than a mind completely overwhelmed with all consuming pain.
GardenLady
Active Member
Certainly morphine clouds the mind. But I believe it is an error to believe that withholding morphine or other pain relief would enhance clarity. Severe pain also clouds the mind.
While I have never suffered the pain of end-stage cancer, I have suffered migraine headaches so bad they made me weep. The Fiorinal that relieved those migraines certainly clouded my mind. But without it, I was hardly cognizant of anything but the pain and nausea of the migraine.
While I have never suffered the pain of end-stage cancer, I have suffered migraine headaches so bad they made me weep. The Fiorinal that relieved those migraines certainly clouded my mind. But without it, I was hardly cognizant of anything but the pain and nausea of the migraine.
I don't know if eternity is actually infinite or just one second experienced at death. A number of people die during sleep and many die during unconsciousness. I don't think morphine would out last infinity...I question my Bible's accuracy concerning the life of the carpenter's son. I embrace Christian philosophy as a life style and I 'hope' and pray someone is at the other end of my prayers...My aunt died suffering with pancreatic cancer. She refused any pain killers for the many months of her illness. I attended her wake and funeral. I have never seen a more beautiful smile than my aunt's smile that I believe was the result of what she saw at the moment of death. My aunt was a Poor Clare nun...There is no scientific proof of the existence of God and there probably never will be. Got to run...
Aren't you assuming all dying is excruciating pain? I saw them give morphine to both my parents as part of hospice care, and neither of them were in excruciating pain ahead of time. I just assumed it was given as a matter of course for hospice. If one is in fact in excruciating pain while dying, then yes, that would be a factor to consider.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Opiates can do more than just ease pain. My Dad was on Fentanyl for a good part of his last years. He was given it as a breathing aid. I would have to look up all of the things that morphine does. Easing pain is obvious, but there may be more things it does for you.
Speaking as someone who had an NDE, yes, the Infinite is real, and it is timelessness or the real meaning of 'eternal', which is not linear time going on and on endlessly as the common thinking on that goes, but rather no time at all, or outside of time. That eternal exists in each moment of time itself. That's just personal experience speaking, not a theological speculation. It's how I describe what I experienced, if you care to know.
Christianity is the language I learned to try to speak to that Infinite and Eternal, but I see it through the lens of metaphor. They are meaningful ways to talk about it, but I don't mistake the descriptions as literal actualities per se. Fingers pointing to the moon, is more the way I hold them. It's a meaningful language.
That's wonderful, other than her suffering pain for so long without pain meds. Yes, one glimpse or taste of the Infinite, and all the cares of this world do evaporate instantly, replaced with boundless Love.
My daughter died on dilaudid. Her last words told me that she had a realization.
I lived the pain she endured second hand. I'm not sure enduring such pain without the help of medication would have aided her on her spiritual path.
Have you ever had your lungs ripped from your chest? How would such an experience advance a person spiritually?
I can endure unbearable pain, so now I'm enlightened?