need to understand what recently killed my mom..please help?

Question

If her blood pressure was low (about 60/35 or so) and she was having a heart attack and they refused to give her pain medication when she begged for it and to die (I am assuming it was dangerous to give her) and then they gave it to her (dilantin and maybe morphine), my doctor said this would make her blood pressure go even lower.

Would this have caused her body systems to shut down, cause many hours of unresponsiveness or unconsciousness or even going brain dead.

Was it the results of the pain meds or the low blood pressure or something else.

Trying to understand..the doctor came in after she died and said she had multiple body system failures and wrote heart attack as cause of death, but we think it was them giving her the pain medicine..

what happens when your blood pressure drops so low?

Answer 1

When your blood pressure drops so low, you go into cardiogenic shock and eventually coma.and death ensues. That is due to the lack of circulating blood -bearing oxygen to the brain and other vital organs..


The diagnosis of heart attack or Acute Myocardial Infarct is proper. They most likely called a Code Blue-= on her to try to save or resuscitate -when she became hypotensive and comatose. towards the end. If the heart attack is massive, it tends to cause damage to the heart muscles which is the major pump of the human body.


When she asked for the pain med, most likely she was still conscious As her blood pressure, crashes, giving pain shots will further exacerbate her condition. She most likely was suffering seizures; that's why they gave her the anticonvulsant drug Dilantin. Seizures are usually common among pts with a stroke.; due to hypertension. She might have a long hx of CAD( coronary artery disease) .


Shock, Cardiogenic


Synonyms and related keywords: cardiogenic shock, cardiac shock, shock, global hypoperfuse, acute myocardial infarction, AMI, decreased pumping of the heart, decreased urine output, altered mentation, hypotension, jugular venous distension, cardiac gallop, pulmonary edema, acute cardiac ischemia

Background: Cardiogenic shock is characterized by a decreased pumping ability of the heart that causes a shocklike state (ie, global hypoperfusion). It most commonly occurs in association with, and as a direct result of, acute myocardial infarction (AMI).


Similar to other shock states, cardiogenic shock is considered to be a clinical diagnosis characterized by decreased urine output, altered mentation, and hypotension. Other clinical characteristics include jugular venous distension, cardiac gallop, and pulmonary edema. The most recent prospective study of cardiogenic shock defines cardiogenic shock as sustained hypotension (systolic blood pressure [BP] less than 90 mm Hg lasting more than 30 min) with evidence of tissue hypoperfusion with adequate left ventricular (LV) filling pressure (Hochman, 1999). Tissue hypoperfusion was defined as cold peripheries (extremities colder than core), oliguria or urine output (<30 mL/h), or both


Once, there is cardiac failure, other systems in the body also fail. And the tissues, cells and vital organs malfunction and unable to sustain life. . In the end, your mom did not have a fighting chance once, she sustained a massive heart attack . - short of a heart transplant. Thus her death was properly attributed to Acute MI or heart attack which led to Cardiogenic Shock which accounted for the multiple system failure.


I know you're in pain over the loss of your beloved mom. Remember, initially, you question why they refuse to give her analgesia or relief of pain. Now you blame the pain med for her death. Morphine is usually administered to relieve pain and discomfort. There is a lot of anxiety and stress involved in a heart attack. And the more anxious- a patient gets during an MI or heart attack, the more it compromises the failing and dying heart. In addition, by not giving her any pain med, the pain alone further exacerbate the problem of causing more stress to her heart.



I don't mean to be callous. But life goes on!. I truly am deeply sorry for your loss. I know how you feel. You're just very angry and bitter in trying to pin the blame on anybody or any circustances for her death. I lost my mother in 1996 to cancer and my dad in 2000 to stroke. I took care of them till the end! Be comforted that you were there for her!
Learn to let go. At least she's in better place devoid of pain
rejoicing in the arms of Our Lord, Jesus.

Answer 2

Yes,morphine's slow our breathing down.When your blood pressure is low you seem to have zero energy if your awake. My fathers would get down to 50/32 and he is still alive. Morphine is like a pain killer.I know Dilan-tin is for prevent of seizures,I am almost 100% sure. There are many different things that could of happened that I am unaware of,
If you have a nurse RN in the family,you could have someone request her records and let the nurse review the chart, Rn's no just as much as the DR's.
Why was she taken top the hospitial? How old was your mom? Heart attack can cause death all by itself, the Morphine didn't help the blood pressure to come up?
Her body could have been shutting down anyways,but she begged for some pain relief and they did what they could.
You should read up on Heart attacks and then go from there.That might answer your questions.. I hope you find what you are looking for in answers. I am also very sorry to hear about your mother.. :(

Answer 3

I'm not sure if the pain meds would've caused that or not. Hypotension (chronic low blood pressure) can cause multiple system failures by itself. It can cause low blood to the brain which causes the brain to not be able to send the message to the heart to continue beating. When the heart beat slows down too much the brain is supposed to kick in and tell it to beat faster. But if her blood pressure was so low that the brain wasn't working right, it wouldn't have been able to get the heart beating faster.

You might want to check out some common causes for low blood pressure at this website. It might help you figure out what happened.

Answer 4

I had similar questions when my Mom died. I got few difinitive answers. One was my Mom was very secretive about illness, always wanted to make it less worriesome for ther rest of us.

Bottom line is, you lost your Mom, its natural to wish to blame someone, and the sad truth is if Mom had been honest with you and her docs she might still be here.

Unstable blood pressure is for a doc walking a tightrope. One step over the line either way is dangerous.

Do I think docs could have made her more comfortable, yes, probably, but would this have slowed her death, liikely not.

Docs erred on the side of caution. However cruel it may have seemed to you, they would not have denied pain meds in an unstable patient who had no bp issues.

Request an autopsy.

Did pain meds hasten her death? Possibly, but they would not have taken this chance if they thought they could save her.

Answer 5

I really feel for you and this terrible burden your carrying. You may want to make some time to go see the doctor and get him to explain what happened and answer you questions. this is the only way you will be able to come to peace with the situation. you need answers!!!!
after this you have to accept that doctors did the best they could,some times its not enough I know but after this you will be able to move onto grieving properley and removing the anger. She cant be brought back but you can change your perception in time to remember all the great things rather than the heartache. this is what your mum would have wanted

Answer 6

the only way to know for sure would be to have an autopsy done,so sorry for your loss.when my husband died it was sudden,he had a stent put in on a monday & the doctor said his heart was as good as new.came home the next day,went to work on wednesday,feeling great.thursday(thanksgiving day)i woke up and he was gone,had died during the night,a friend insisted i get an autopsy & i did.he had a clot from the site where they put the stent in.his atty.friend thought i should sue but that wouldn't bring him back,when they're gone there's really nothing you can do.grief is a long road but you learn to deal with it.plz seek counseling.it works.

Answer 7

I ate a Spotted Owl once, kinda tasted like cat. under your bed eating your cat