Is it painful to starve to death?

Any Drs. out there have any experiences, knowledge or have a comment or opinion?

My Mother stopped eating and drinking and she was totally relaxed and died a peaceful death. Her son (a Dr.) recommended she receive NO tube feeding and if it is such a painful death as DeLay and others say...I can't imagine he would have allowed that to happen.

I'd like to know what people (Drs./nurses/health care providers etc)think who have had experience with this form of death.

NT

But when your cerebral cortex has been liquified, you have no thoughts and can't feel anything.

But you didn't answer my question. Is it painful to starve to death as Republicans say?

Her body is merely on 'life' support - an organ support system at best, except there's no cerebral cortex. The anatomical death will be of thirst - renal failure. Toxins will accumulate due to lack of kidney function. Those toxins have an anesthetic effect. Were there a 'somebody' to be aware, they'd be aware of lethargy, then loss of consciousness would eliminate awareness.

Anorexics do it. Dehydrating means you get thirsty, then thirstier, finally go unconscious and die. Dehydrating quickly is easier than getting little bits of water, enough to let your body minimally function, but not enough to make it feel good. Dehydrating quickly, no fluid intake (whether directly through fluids or in food) is pretty fast and doesn't seem particularily painful, though it can be hard to watch someone die. Speaking from many yrs of nursing experience.

malnutrition has injured their major organs, I thought. Like their hearts and livers.

What does being a nurse or doctor have to do with it? If you haven't experienced it, you don't know what it feels like.

Funny the things we tell ourselves to sleep at night.

If someone truly wishes to know, all they do is to stop drinking or eating and see how it feels.

Researchers mapping the brain, figuring out what chemicals are released in the human body and when?

pshaw

how it feels?

is not the physiological reality.

And given your personal issues because of family members that's not surprising.

Give me a break! Why are we all outraged ( I hope) when they show some hideous parents, or foster parents, who lock their children and don't feed them? When the poor children look like skeletons and eat wall paper to survive, are we going to say it's not painful? I wonder why survivors of concentration camps aren't talking about pleasant experiences they had starving nearly to death.

And healthy children are not in irreversible decline.

Duh.

ill person doesn't feel pain while starving to death to saying that a healthy person doesn't feel pain while starving to death?

is not pain per se.

That doesn't mean a healthy capable person doesn't WANT to eat.

near death, and could be in a lot of pain (even if the physician is not sure), they will put the patient in a medication-induced coma. Once that is done, they will eventually die due to organs shutting down. The patient is not aware of any of it due to the medication they are given so they literally die in their sleep.

There were a few weeks when I could barely get anything in--I could take in about one can of nutritional shake a day, sipped all day long. Water was painful to drink; the shake was torturous, and solid food was out of the question. I lost most of my body fat. My periods stopped for a few months. I went from 120 lbs. to 80 lbs.

The first day or two without food is unpleasant. After the body goes into ketosis, you don't feel hungry any more, just more and more tired and weak.

Tucker

Someone should ask them and put the record streight.

nothing is painful and rejecting food and water is a natural part of dying.

You have no part of your brain that could possibly receive pain messages.

So how do you feel pain?

All Terri has are parts of her brain that do NOT process pain messages.

Nerve endings in and throughout our body send tiny fast electrical impulses to our cerebral cortex, so it can interpret them as "OUCH!!!! THAT HURTS!!!"

But without a cerebral cortex, there is no brain matter to RECEIVE and translate those electrical impulses. Which means they don't get felt.

So explain to me how she's supposed to perceive pain with no brain tissue that perceives pain?

All of the doctors explained to the families that there is virtually no pain in allowing the body to be dehydrated. But just in case, the patient is usually given morphine. My understanding is that is done more for the sake of the family than the patient.

It's also perfectly natural that as a person ages, they eat less. It's a part of the dying process.

She had discomfort, but it was due to her multiple health problems. It was controlled by a mild narcotic. Her end was peaceful. Her last meal was a few spoonsful of chocolate pudding. She refused everything after that.

I've done cleansing fasts up to ten days. After a headache during the first one or two days (which was likely caused more by caffeine withdrawal than fasting), there was no hunger, no discomfort, and no interest in food.

Schiavo is on hospice care. Hospice workers all err on the side of comfort, which means if she twitches, if her heart rate or blood pressure start to go up a little, they will sedate her with opiates and possibly other medications. She will experience no discomfort if she is capable of interpreting anything as either pleasure or pain (doubtful).

I had forgotten that many people in the world fast for extended periods of time for health or religious reasons.

Of course, her starvation will go beyond the point of a fast, but it's the same concept. Thanks.

My dad stopped eating as he neared the end. We were told this is very common and is seen as a sign that the end is near and also that it's a natural preparation for death.

not entirely but just bite of this and a sip of that and he was walking around. I wish someone had warned me of the signs although I complained to his caregivers about his lack of appetite.

painful, though morphine is administered as a precaution.

her own parents die. At the very end of life, dying patients don't want food or water--even those with an existing cerebral cortex. Terri Schiavo doesn't have a cerebral cortex.

DeLay is lying, Auntie. He is lying for his own political purposes, in the hopes that the ignorant will believe him.

That is the sick truth of the matter.

is painful. Perhaps now the congressional Republicans will put more money is the budget for poverty related programs since DeLay thinks this is a painful death and since America's infant mortality rate is 24th in the world which means we have a long way to go for being the "greatest nation on earth."

Someone should remind him of this statement the next time funding for Headstart comes up since he's voted against it every fucking time.

Amen. :toast:

My ex-mother-in-law had a stroke and had a living will. She requested no heroic means, including tube feeding. She was alive, but couldn't really move, so she didn't want to live like that. It took her a few weeks to die, but believe me, if it was painful, she would have stopped the procedure.

I think when your body is ready to shut down, there is no pain. My grandmother stopped eating and drinking at 96, she was ready to die. When she went into a coma, the hardest thing my uncles had to do was to let her go. I think this is nature's way of dealing with bodies that are too sick to survive on their own.

zalinda

can help halt some of the sensationalism and untruths about this.

From my experience of going a week without food many times in my childhood it really wasn't painful.

Back history first: My mum was on a widows pension raising myself and my sister. There was never much money, and quite often we would end up going a week without food.

On the first day, you do feel hunger pains. But come the second day, there really isn't any hunger pains left.

Now remember I had a fully functioning brain, so I would feel any pains if there were any. Terri's brain is pretty much just spinal fluid. She won't even feel the hunger pains from the first day. Plus they usually give them some drugs to keep them comfortable.

The hospice people were great explaining the process for M-I-L when she lost gag reflex and weas unable to eat or drink and had requested no unusual means.

The body recedes into itself and just deals with it. They use morphine to ease any rough spots. She was not lucid by that point for other reasons and it was just very peaceful.

:)

:hi: It's an honor to have your first post. I'm know you will enjoy DU.

had a major stroke in 1996.

She refused to to be transported to a hospital (while she was still able to speak). A few days and a couple of small strokes later, she was placed in a rest home, where she refused all food and liquids. She calmly passed away within a week. The family had a DNR (do not resusitate) order on her.

She wanted to die peacefully at her home but instead was in a care home. Our family has no regrets but often I think 'why weren't her wishes respected'?

When my grandfather was ready to die in 2001, we all respected his wish to go peacefully from this earth at his/their longtime home and that is what happened (with the help of local hospice). At 96, we didn't feel that prolonging his life was something we should do. He had lived a full and meaningful life just like my grandmother had. He was ready to join his wife in whatever afterlife held for him.

I hope that if I am ever in such a position, my family will respect my wished as others in my family respected my elders.

No pain that I know of - he chose to die and nobody tried to stop his will. He was in the hospital after a stroke and he simply decided he wouldn't live like an animal and stopped eating. Proud man.