AboutMargot RN BScN CGN Expertise I nursed my own Mother and Grandmother at home when they were dying so I have personal experience with the emotions involved. I have also spent the last 15+ years as a Registered Nurse caring for The Elderly and Terminally Ill and it has brought me great satisfaction. I am willing to answer any questions I can.
Experience
Past/Present clients Hundreds of Long Term Care Residents as well as hundreds of Cleitns and families in the community (including my Mother and Grandmother).
Question how much morphine is a lethal dose?
my mom passed away on april 26, 2006 for the 2 weeks she was in the hospital we had no idea she would'nt be coming home. the doctors called us in for a meeting and told us the news that she probably would'nt make it through the night. i agreed to comfort measures with morphine but i had no idea that the use of morphine with a copd patient could have been what killed her, anyway she was given 100mg at an increased rate with prn orders and they eventually drained an entire bottle of morphine into her within 6 hours on top of that they gave her 30 mg of methadone 1 hour before she passed away.
Answer Hi Melisaa and thanks for writing,
I'm sorry to hear about your Mom. It's hard to guess what a "lethal" dose is as there are so many factors that affect it ... mgs/dose, body weight, frequency of the doses, previous use of narcotics, other medications that enhance or dilute the narcotic effect, etc ...
Morphine is commonly used for comfort in pallitive patients, and the doses can get up to 800 mg without being "lethal" depending on previous use etc. If you are wondering if the drugs caused your Mother's death, I would stop worrying about it. COPD is a degenerative disease which is always fatal, but there comes a time when prolonging life would be cruel and comfort is the right thing to do.
I hope this helps to ease your mind and answer your question,
