how long can a person live without food and water my Dad some form of stomach cancer.?

Question

he couldn't even take medicine. He is given some pain medincie with nausea medicine by suposatory. It will be a week on Saturday. Hospice is coming during the week.

Answer 1

First, I am so sorry. Cancer is debilitating to the families as well as the patients.
A healthy person can three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.
As your dad is weakened by the disease, this probably won't apply to him. Keep your vigil, and let him know how much he is loved.

Answer 2

I am sorry to hear that. Hospice care is normally for terminally ill patients, so I assume that there were no treatment available.

A person can live at least a month without food. The body starts using any fat and muscle tissue for food.
Water is much more important since dehydration can lead to organ failure, the blood gets thicker and there are problems with that. a few days to a week or so I think is the longest.

He can be given water by an intravenous drip. That will keep him hydrated. They can also provide some food via drip, I believe its mainly a sugar and minerals solution.

Pain meds can be injected , as can nausea meds. Or again , added via a drip.

Answer 3

Don't feel weird, this is actually a really common discussion. It's normal to wonder about our limits. People can live a long time without food, especially if they are healthy and/or have a few pounds to spare. Most of us have a few pounds to spare, even the healthiest of us, in terms of surviving starvation. In our fat and muscles we store sugars and nutrients that our body can utilize when we have a bad nutrition week or what have you. Bodies will eat that up first, then start to cannibilize our bones for nutrients, making you even weaker. On the plus side, it would be very unlikely to die of starvation, you would be much, much more likely to die of dehydration. As your body dehydrates your brain shuts down every other body function besides your heart and brain to conserve water, and even then they are running like a remote where u had to flip the batteries around to get it to work another week. It's really a terrible senario, running out of water. If in this "situation" you literally have no water at all, a couple of degrees in temp can drastically change your expectancy to live. 70 degrees, no water, all shade, you may survive a miserable heII of 10 days at most, 80 degrees? maybe 8-9 days. 90 degrees? you are lucky to make it a week. That's in the shade all day, reducing the chances of evaporation.

Answer 4

Im sorry to hear about your dad i am going through the same thing at the moment with my dad he has stomach cancer and has been in hospital for three months his cancer is only small but he has a rash all over him that wont go and since he has been in hospital he has caught mrsa so they can not treat him watching someone you love with this is the worst thing you can imagine i know what you are going through just try and reasure him and spend as much time as you can with him i will be thinking of you . oh and they will give him fluids they will find a way.

Answer 5

He could live for about 2-4 weeks

Answer 6

3 days without food and 3 weeks without water or fluids.

Have him try boost or go to the hospital and have IV fluids.

Answer 7

Sorry to hear that, normally from day one when the cancer is diagnosed it's already too late, maximum fiver without metastases, and scale comes down to to 6 months to 1 year maximum, in your father's case, please do not get offended as it carries a poor prognosis.

Answer 8

there are intravenous ways for him to get nutrients and fluids...and sorry about your dad, maybe he has chosen not to have any life saving measures to be taken, and to answer your question, you can good quite a while without food but only days without water....

Answer 9

he can get food and water/ by tube inserted in nose/or stomach