Obviously no one wants to die in severe, uncontrolled pain.
Yet even over a hundred years ago, Albert Schweitzer was able to adequately control pain in dying individuals. Even then, during what could now be termed the 'dark ages of pain control', this physician was able to ensure that his patients lived — and died — comfortably and with real dignity. He didn't need lethal drug overdoses then, and we certainly don't need them now.
Before the advent of the hospice movement in the early 1980s, a patient with severe pain had only a few choices for good pain control, most of which involved hospitalization. Now, many more good options exist for care and pain control during life-limiting illnesses.
In fact, by 1997, trained hospice and palliative care professionals and pain specialists could already alleviate between 90-99% of all physical pain, without causing addiction or leaving the patient in a stupor. The remaining 1% could, even then, be controlled within tolerable levels, albeit with some increased sleepiness.
Since the mid-1990's, health care's ability to control pain in people with life-limiting illnesses has only improved. Now, most patients, even those who develop severe pain, (which is actually a minority of patients with widespread cancer) can be cared for comfortably at home, with effectively controlled pain, and hospice assistance.
According to Dr Ronald Melzack, in an article some years ago entitled, "The Tragedy of Needless Pain," we have 'broken the sound barriers,' of pain control. Yet the myth of uncontrollable pain continues. This myth, advanced in part by individuals and groups whose agenda is legalized assisted suicide, frightens vulnerable ill people and their families, causing them to consider lethal drug overdoses rather than the good medical and hospice care they deserve.
Radical suicide proponent and author or the Final Exit, Derek Humphrey, admits in his book, "Let Me Die Before I Wake", that "only a small amount of physical pain cannot be controlled today." But that didn't stop suicide advocacy organizations from selling assisted suicide to the voters of Washington and Oregon based on reports of uncontrolled pain and needless suffering.
Much of the time, simple and nonintrusive methods can adequately treat pain through a combination of long and short acting medications, some of which work very quickly, by being placed under the tongue. In other circumstances, pain patches, pain medication via a patient-controlled pump, or other means can be used to eradicate or radically reduce pain to an acceptable level.
Home-based pain control options for people with terminal illnesses now include, but are not limited to:
• long-acting sustained release morphine pills that last up to twelve hours,
• small morphine tablets which melt under the tongue and give immediate pain relief,
• a small patch like a band-aid-like pain patch which slowly infuses pain medication for up to 72 hours,
• subcutaneous (beneath the skin) or IV morphine given via a small computer attached to the patient by a tiny needle, through which the patient can control when he or she needs an added dose.
For severe uncontrolled pain, epidural infusions, inhaled narcotics, or other more high-tech options may be used, usually with the assistance of a pain specialist.
In sum, excellent options exist for good pain control-many more than existed even five or even ten years ago, much less twenty five or a hundred years ago.
