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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:05
Penile cancer.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:24
ALS-A good friend of mine just choked to death on his secretions after wasting away to about 85 lbs-a great man,veteran of Iraq wars and excellent ER doctor.What a way to go ! And I thought my dad suffered with terminal colon cancer!
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:25
drhoops-I've heard they can replace it if they whack it off -so to speak
Posted 14 July, 2016 10:28
ALS for sure
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:32
I would say pancreatic cancer. Very painful, almost sure death, and not too quickly.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:33
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:35
ALS
Infected breast implants a close second
Infected breast implants a close second
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:39
"drhoops-I've heard they can replace it if they whack it off -so to speak"
Maybe . . . I'd rather not find out.
Posted via Mobile 14 July, 2016 10:42
Ovarian Ca
Pancreatic Ca- painful slow death
ALS
Pancreatic Ca- painful slow death
ALS
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Updated 14 July, 2016 10:43
Howoff, infected breast implants are not that horrible to treat. Remove them and use antibiotics. i vote for any GI malignancy- nothing worse than getting obstructed.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:48
I am a dude. Means I was really drunk or insane
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:57
Huntington's Chorea, Glioblastoma, Parkinson's, Alzheimers, Dementia, CRPS, Locked in Syndrome, Post thalamic Pain Syndrome.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:57
any brain injury - traumatic, infectious, vascular, etc. Leaves you alive but disabled. Hard on everyone.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 10:57
Ma, all you guys with pancreatic cancer being a painful death, have you never heard of a celiac plexus block????
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:04
Priapism with the wife out of town
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:05
ALS---watched my grandmother die from it when I was a teenager.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:12
I watched my dad die of COPD, alert and oriented til the end , but suffocating slowly to death. Bedridden and would desturate to unconsciousness with minimal movement. Really the slow death from hell.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:16
Also wouldn't want HPV with genital warts or HSV with genital lesions!
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:27
I don't care - I would kill myself before it took over.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:36
Here's a book recommendation that may be relevant to the topic:
"How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter, New Edition"
https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Die-Reflections-C...
https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Die-Reflections-C...
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Posted 14 July, 2016 11:56
Slow conscious deaths:
Ovarian Ca
Pancreatic Ca
ALS
Ovarian Ca
Pancreatic Ca
ALS
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Posted 14 July, 2016 12:01
ALS
CJD
Locked-in syndrome
CJD
Locked-in syndrome
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Posted 14 July, 2016 12:31
Something that makes you a burden on your loved ones.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 12:34
ALS definitely.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 12:39
Me altheimers. My kids any severe illness
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Posted via Mobile 14 July, 2016 12:57
Alzheimer's
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Posted 14 July, 2016 13:44
CHF chronic with intact mentation
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Posted 14 July, 2016 13:48
Huntington's Chorea, especially knowing you might have passed it on to your kids
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Posted 14 July, 2016 14:23
ALS, trigeminal neuralgia-almost worse than death
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Posted via Mobile 14 July, 2016 15:19
ALS or Lewy Body Dementia.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 15:58
Huntington's chorea
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Posted 14 July, 2016 16:05
looks like ALS is # 1 dreaded disease
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Posted 14 July, 2016 16:06
Agree with many above - Huntington's, CJD, ALS, GBM...how odd that most of these worst-of-the-worst are neurologic.
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Updated 14 July, 2016 16:12
Huntingtons came to mind first for me. Als is up there too. Massive burns that culminate in slow death is another one (daily baths??). A family remember received oropharyngeal radiation and that was some of the most barbaric s*** I've ever seen as well.
Systemic sclerosis and really bad lupus are others that come to mind.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 16:32
Oropharyngeal cancer radiation may be tough as far as side effects but I bet she was cured.
Posted 14 July, 2016 17:27
^Not to be too negative, but it took so much from her life the point is moot
Posted 14 July, 2016 17:42
Oropharyngeal cancer
Everything erodes away. The person loses the ability to drink, eat, and speak. Eventually, the cancer erodes into a carotid artery and the person drowns in their own blood. Watched my mother die from this.
slygal : Yes they can cure the first cancer, but all of the tissue in the region is primed to create new cancer. My mother died from her third primary cancer.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 18:13
I would hate not to be able to end it all if it became intolerable. So any disease that allowed cognition to continue, but wouldn't let me blow my brains out: ALS, locked-in syndrome, and so forth.
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Posted 14 July, 2016 18:19
I dunno about those but some of my patients swear that their pain, on a scale of zero to ten, is an eleven..
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Posted 14 July, 2016 19:58
Any disease which causes me to rely on anyone to bathe and clean me.
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Posted 15 July, 2016 08:14
So many to choose from. I think that, in terms of sheer terror:
Locked In syndrome.
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Posted 15 July, 2016 14:53
ALS
GBM
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Posted 15 July, 2016 16:30
rabies
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Posted 15 July, 2016 20:53
I don't want anything "fulminant".
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Posted 16 July, 2016 01:53
Ebola
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:12
Trump presidency. lol
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:13
Crohn's refractory to tx
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:18
OMG, there are so many to pick from. With cancer, ALS, dementia, etc. I would have time to "take care of business". However, a stroke with a locked in syndrome is the worst possible thing that could possibly happen to a person. I get shakey and sweaty just thinking about it. I am not kidding.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:20
ALS and Pancreatic Cancer are 1&2. Slow painful deaths. No cure in sight yet!
Posted 16 July, 2016 09:25
got it right now. . . .acute pancreatitis with relapsing chronic episodes. absolutely terrible. 50 pound weight loss, now insulin dependent diabetic, severe diet restriction, chronic pain, miserable lay on the floor and retch relapses.
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Updated 16 July, 2016 09:28
Locked In Syndrome the worst.
ALS next worst- your body deteriorates while your mind stays sharp.
Alzheimer's, Lewy Body dementia, & most other dementias next- they take a long time to result in fatal consequences, but they're harder on your loved ones than you after a point, when you're so far out of it that you don't know it anymore.
CJD next in line- at least it kills you relatively quickly.
Anything else that leaves your mind intact can be handled either with analgesic methods, or with a quick overdose exit if the pain or other physical symptoms become intolerable, as your mind is intact.
Brain tumors- primary or metastatic- if incurable, can be handled by high-dose steroids and diuretics to relieve headache when other methods fail. When headaches return, D/C both, and unconsciousness comes in 12-24 hours, and death in 2-3 days.
ALS next worst- your body deteriorates while your mind stays sharp.
Alzheimer's, Lewy Body dementia, & most other dementias next- they take a long time to result in fatal consequences, but they're harder on your loved ones than you after a point, when you're so far out of it that you don't know it anymore.
CJD next in line- at least it kills you relatively quickly.
Anything else that leaves your mind intact can be handled either with analgesic methods, or with a quick overdose exit if the pain or other physical symptoms become intolerable, as your mind is intact.
Brain tumors- primary or metastatic- if incurable, can be handled by high-dose steroids and diuretics to relieve headache when other methods fail. When headaches return, D/C both, and unconsciousness comes in 12-24 hours, and death in 2-3 days.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:31
Dementia would be at the top of my list if I would lack the ability to thank my family for their efforts to care for me. A friend retired from practice to take care of his wife who developed dementia. I ran into them in the grocery store and he facilitated a brief conversation. Not sure if she recognized me or not.
I retired to take care of my mother who is O2 dependent but sharp as a tack. She was extremely active in her previous life, she said the cigarettes kept her going. It's terrible for her to just sit inside all day but she is thankful I have kept her out of the nursing home.
I retired to take care of my mother who is O2 dependent but sharp as a tack. She was extremely active in her previous life, she said the cigarettes kept her going. It's terrible for her to just sit inside all day but she is thankful I have kept her out of the nursing home.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:35
Locked-in syndrome by far anyway. A distant second would be a trump presidency
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:38
I think spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), severe form. We are allowing these patients to live to adulthood, using ventilators and feeding tubes. They have normal cognition, but will never eat, walk, or talk. Sometimes I feel guilty because I think would I do all that intervention to keep the child alive, but who is to say what the quality of life would be if you were not affected how can you pass judgement, But personally I think I would chose no intervention if it was me, if my child I don't know what I would do.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:41
Schizophrenia- not only does it screw your life up at a much younger age than dementia, your family and loved ones often abandon you.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:46
ALS, Locked-in Syndrome, ovarian cancer.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:50
Amazonia- I have a brother in law graced with stage IV tonsil cancer. The insurance company would only pay for "the standard of care", as in photon therapy, which as you've noted basically BBQs you from the inside out, a never ending nightmare. It cost him 70k to get proton therapy per MDA; results: no evidence of disease, never needed PEG, back at work in 3 mo and eating normally by 6 mo. So, there's one lousy fate that could be eliminated. I suggest we BBQ the insurance company CEO's oropharyngeal cancers and see how long it takes them to see the non photon light...
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:57
Huntington's Disease. Having watched my husband die from it recently. Combine the worst of Alzeiheimers, ALS and Parkingsons and you get Huntingstons. You lose the person you know and love, and have
the fear your kids will go through this terrible disease. 50/50 chance of it.
the fear your kids will go through this terrible disease. 50/50 chance of it.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 09:58
ALS, CKD, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, early onset Alzheimers
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:09
I would have said M.S. until I got it 20 years ago: the uncertainty for the rest of your life not knowing every morning you wake up what function you have lost, working as hard as you can to get it back, and then losing it, often for good.
Now I would say locked-in syndrome.
Has anybody else noticed that when patients come in and say that "the only disease I never want is: _____" ,
that nine times out of ten that's what they come down with?
Now I would say locked-in syndrome.
Has anybody else noticed that when patients come in and say that "the only disease I never want is: _____" ,
that nine times out of ten that's what they come down with?
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:15
Any Psych dz.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:15
Hellary and Slick Willy would be the worst dz that ever hit this world
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:25
There is no "worst". There are many awful ways to go.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:35
any disease can be the worse trust me once you experience any of them all others fall in the same category
so I decided not to name any of them since they all are bad enough .
as doctors we know disease= death
so I decided not to name any of them since they all are bad enough .
as doctors we know disease= death
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:41
There are 2. GBM and pancreatic cancer tie.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:45
What if you get GBM *and* pancreatic cancer
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:47
ALS or Dementia with Lewy Bodies...Locked in syndrome is high on list as well...
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:51
Chron's
I'd take colon cancer before chron's
I'd take colon cancer before chron's
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:54
Huntington's Correa - you can be diagnosed even before symptoms occur and know what awaits while perfectly healthy.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:55
a really bad, aggressive case of scleroderma.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 10:56
TETANUS: Immunization programs in the Congo (DRC) are non-existent therefore a fairly common illness. Neonatal tetanus, from indigenous midwife using non-sterile knife, typically associated with a co-existent Staphylococcal infection of the umbilical cord, in my experience was universally fatal. Adults in a land where few had the luxury of wearing shoes, presented with obscure history of trauma and in marked trismus and painful prolonged tonic convulsions precipitated by minor trauma, all the worse because they were fully conscious.
Medications were mostly those left by the Belgians decades earlier and excepting for the abundance of phenobarbital tablets were useless. Most survived by simple treatment: solitary confinement in a dark room with very limited visitors, Foley catheter in bladder and a rectal infusion using an open cutoff IV plastic bottle, tubing in the rectum, and infusion of rain water caught off the hospital roof, mixed to approximately 1/2 normal saline solution by addition of table salt, and large doses of phenobarbital tablets crushed and added to the solution, titrating infusion rates to effect and tolerance.
Horrific spasms with the slightest stimulation lasted at least 10 days. Although we did not have the luxury of easily available x-rays, according to lecturer at London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, in his work in South African hospital, most had "coal miner's fractures". Most all adult patients treated in this manner survived. The apparent limiting factor was that of nutrition, i.e. patient's existing calory releasing reserves, there being no safe, affordable, or effective means of providing nutrition in our primitive environment, Oral feedings if a family member was there to cook on the open fires on the hospital grounds and provide food inevitably provoked life threatening convulsions and aspiration pneumonia. Patients, mostly male, unaccompanied by a loyal significant other, resourceful enough to buy food locally, cook, and maintain herself for at least 10 days without need to return to her gardens and village, did not stand a chance.
Horrific spasms with the slightest stimulation lasted at least 10 days. Although we did not have the luxury of easily available x-rays, according to lecturer at London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, in his work in South African hospital, most had "coal miner's fractures". Most all adult patients treated in this manner survived. The apparent limiting factor was that of nutrition, i.e. patient's existing calory releasing reserves, there being no safe, affordable, or effective means of providing nutrition in our primitive environment, Oral feedings if a family member was there to cook on the open fires on the hospital grounds and provide food inevitably provoked life threatening convulsions and aspiration pneumonia. Patients, mostly male, unaccompanied by a loyal significant other, resourceful enough to buy food locally, cook, and maintain herself for at least 10 days without need to return to her gardens and village, did not stand a chance.
Adult tetanus by far the most hideous disease I have ever witnessed!
Monganga Ron: Surgical missionary to Wasolo, DRC
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:09
Life grief after the death of your child. A part of you (the parent) has died, but the pain lives on.
Emotional pain can be worse than physical pain. --Many of you know this.
Strength comes in the hope by faith in the final Resurrection, and knowledge that Love does not die.
Emotional pain can be worse than physical pain. --Many of you know this.
Strength comes in the hope by faith in the final Resurrection, and knowledge that Love does not die.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:09
Yup. Tetanus. Rabies.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:10
I have a fear of drowning. Or stabbing. I don't know why. I'd rather die some other way.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:14
SeptemberMorn :Right on the money.When my 27 year old son died due to alcoholic related activity,the daily pain and mental anguish began.Everyday is another what if I put him into yet another rehab or somehow kept him away from his enabling mother etc.?I still cry every time I cross the bridge where we put his ashes in his favorite fishing spot.Emotional pain is WAY MORE PAINFUL than physical pain.Just because you can't quantify it doesn't mean it's not there.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:15
allwind :Stabbing can be quick,the drowning takes a few minutes ,I think.
Geraldo
Ophthalmology
Posted 16 July, 2016 11:16
When a friend died slowly of ALS I thought that was the worst. My kid brother is dying an ugly death from metastatic prostate cancer. I just cracked six ribs falling off a horse and had a narrow escape. There is no scarcity of suffering. The question, doctor, is how do we relieve it if the patient has suffered all they can bear and begs for relief? Take a look at Final Exit Network (.org) and consider offering your services as a volunteer Exit Guide.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:19
Geraldo : If it comes to the end I heard that in Canada euthanasia is legal.It would take a lot of love and compassion to take that step though.Do it here in America and you get charged with murder.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:25
Why is Geraldo's name not blue/clicakble?
Euthanasia is legal in California and Oregon.
Euthanasia is legal in California and Oregon.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:25
Stevens-Johnson, ALS, Huntington's Chorea, locked-in syndrome,
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:26
With the rancor and meanheartedness on sermo, I'd never reveal that here publicly.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:28
How soon we forget how bad the vaccine-preventable diseases can be! Tetanus, infantile paralysis (polio), rabies
Additional ideas from pediatrics: advanced cystic fibrosis, the bad forms of epidermolysis bullosa, and any pediatric cancer whose genetics or treatments set you up for additional cancers--what a way to live your childhood!
Additional ideas from pediatrics: advanced cystic fibrosis, the bad forms of epidermolysis bullosa, and any pediatric cancer whose genetics or treatments set you up for additional cancers--what a way to live your childhood!
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:29
What is it about ALS and losing one's potency that hits everyone? Tough, yes. But I think I can live it. Could be worse, I think. A really really bad depression for instance would really suck. It's all a mind game.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:31
allwind : Remember your fear of drowning ?How about drowning in your own secretions?That's hoe my friend went.
Posted 16 July, 2016 11:33
I dunno. There's something about water and it being all around me. Like the difference between choking and drowning.
Posted 16 July, 2016 11:34
President Hillary Clinton. It slowly kills your country, the practice of medicine, and has no sense of ethics.
But if we're being strictly medical, locked in syndrome.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:34
ALS plus anything that leads to incontinence.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 11:42
How can anyone pick just one disease state or condition? We are human and we are doctors. Any disease, illness, or condition that forces us to stand by and watch helplessly as someone suffers is bad. Pain and suffering is pain and suffering, no matter what causes it. Is there really a difference between watching a patient suffer from metastatic cancer or ALS? Both are slow, painful, and often force you to suffer the frustration of your own limitations. Over the years I have seen people bleed out and suffer excruciating pain from metastatic uterine cancer. I have seen patients gasping for their last breath as they suffocate from end-stage COPD. I have seen a person burned so badly go from the seering pain caused by screaming nerve endings only to die drowning from pulmonary edema. I can go on and on. For me, the worst disease I would never want to see my loved one die from is the one that ties my hands and makes me watch in despair- that leaves hundreds of possibilities.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 12:04
How about priapism with wife in town!
Seriously, this is the most morbid post. There are many ways to die, none of them have a very good outcome.
I've often thought about how I would choose to die, and there are no good options. Don't know if I want to know at all. I really don't look forward to it. Seems an altogether unpleasant outcome!
If I was required to choose, I would like to have a fatal heart attack while making love to a young beautiful woman, except that will never happen. My second choice is to become a vampire.
Seriously, this is the most morbid post. There are many ways to die, none of them have a very good outcome.
I've often thought about how I would choose to die, and there are no good options. Don't know if I want to know at all. I really don't look forward to it. Seems an altogether unpleasant outcome!
If I was required to choose, I would like to have a fatal heart attack while making love to a young beautiful woman, except that will never happen. My second choice is to become a vampire.
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Posted 16 July, 2016 12:31
Abandonment and loneliness is worse than any other pain.
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