Does a person feel pain when dying with catastrophic cva?
Patient: My mom died of a catastrophic cva. It happened on Friday am. Was unconscious. Was intubated. Removed after a few hours per her wishes in proxy. Remained unconscious but breathing on her own until Monday am when she died. Dr said she didn t feel anything but her legs were moving had slight gag reflex when extubated. Was she in any pain & why did she not fie immediately but died 3 days later? Could she have felt any pain during this? Doctor: Hi,Thanks for writing in to us.Sorry to hear about the loss of your mother. The brain is an important organ and a stroke can cause deficient blood supply or leakage of blood in to the brain as the case might be. The end result is decreased functioning of brain and this continues till the brain cannot sustain itself. Coming to pain being felt, the brain by itself cannot feel pain but if there was some leakage of blood in to the brain coverings then irritation of nerve endings might happen. This does not happen in every patient and when it happens, there is restlessness in the patient. If your mom did not show any signs of restlessness then there was no pain that she possibly had. The brain was supporting itself and in 3 days there was deterioration of the other organ functions leading to her demise. May her soul rest in peace.