Morphine used to surpress pain

posssible?

Yes.
and yes.
Morphine does not remove all the pain if you are badly hurt and if you have knowledge it is possible to dull pain without knocking yourself out.
A dosage for that would be I believe 50 milligrams, but I'm a dropout nurse and not actually an "expert".
There are stories of mothers lifting cars off their children, of stupendous strength due to adrenaline. There are stories of men on the battlefield who kept going with terrible wounds who carried comrades off the battlefield also. Good Luck.

Morphine doesn't numb pain like Novocain, it reduces the brain's awareness of the pain. It also makes you very sleepy, happy, and sort of drunk. The leg still hurts, but not as much as it did before the shot, and it doesn't bother you so much. Morphine injected into a vein works in a few seconds, morphine injected into a muscle works in a few minutes.

Cindy, I'm a nurse and you are correct. The edge would be taken off the pain... but they would still feel uncomfortable moving that much. I work in ortho and see it used daily after surgery.

Could a person still function on Morphine? Absolutely (though I think 50mg is a little high on the dosage-depends on weight of person)

Could they walk? Probably- depends greatly on what muscle is affected and what calliber bullet was used- but yeah he could probably limp along.

I think it would also depend greatly on the wound itself. If it goes through the upper thigh without severing an artery then movement and ability wouldn't be a problem. However if the bullet rips an artery, the individual could bleed out to the point of dizziness quickly and probably not stay conscience long enough to go anywhere, in addition if the bullet cracks bone, the pain and the inability to stand on the leg would be a hinderence regrdless of morphine.

sheadakota said:

Could a person still function on Morphine? Absolutely (though I think 50mg is a little high on the dosage-depends on weight of person)

Could they walk? Probably- depends greatly on what muscle is affected and what calliber bullet was used- but yeah he could probably limp along.

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Right. My eyes opened wide at reading that dose. That's more than an order of magnitude off for even a hefty IM dose. Most people with that much morphine at once will stop breathing. I've never prescribed morphine in anything even approaching that amount for a single dose. A typical IV dose for a PCA (one of the patient controlled pain buttons) is one milligram up to every 10 minutes. For IM, there is a slower take up of the medicine and you might go 3-5 times higher and also increase the interval.

My experience with morphine: I had a serious traumatic injury (compound fracture of collarbone. it poked through the skin) Once I got the morphine, I didn't want to do anything other than lay there. It made a huuuuuuuuuge difference and I felt happy, sleepy, and drunk. It was exactly like Palmfrond describes. The nurses were trying to get me to move so they could transfer me to another bed and I flat out refused. I didn't want to move. Moving was hard, like I was underwater. My limbs felt very heavy and even keeping my eyes open seemed to require effort.

The morphine felt goooooooooooooood.

I see lots of morphine administered (ski patrol ... the ambulance crews give it if needed before transport)

10mg given IV can kill you if it's in a single squirt. They give 2mg at a time, flushing with IV drip. nIt "takes the edge off", and people get loopy on as little as 2 mg. It seems that the worse they are hurting, the loopier they get when the relief hits. 10mg is the limit until you are in the hospital because of the fear of respiratory failure.

Injected, 10mg takes longer to take effect, but you are noticeably drifty. He could wobble from the taxi - depending on how bad the wound is.

I have kidney stones from time to time. A few years back I ended up in ER because the pain was so bad.

They gave me morphine for the pain (first time I ever had it). My main memory is that I was still in the same crippling pain, I just didn't care so much.

Oh, and I had a hankering for cheese cake.

And I don't like cheese cake.

But the pain did NOT go away like a pain-killer type drug. And I definitely needed driving home. So the drunk thing is probably spot on.

I'm not sure how morphine works on normal people, I have a psychotic reaction to it and just go absolutely crazy and violent.

However, some drugs I can handle, and since morphine is basically whole body, I figure that it would act like some of the other meds I've been giving.

OK, gunshot wound on the outer thigh, right?

Caliber, location, how close was the weapon, which leg, how tough is this guy? How resistant to pain is he, how familiar with pain is he? What kind of injury do you, as God in this story, expect him to be able to handle and keep right on coming? How bad of an injury was it to the leg? Did the bullet mushroom or fragment inside the wound (as God, you can tell this, even if the story doesn't say it), did it nick or ricochet off the bone? How much muscle does he have on the outer thigh? How susceptible to wound shock is he? Is this his first major injury (that makes a big difference), was it by surprise or did he know it was coming?

There's a lot of variables...

Feasibly, he could take the bullet to the leg, make an improvised pressure dressing out of a T-Shirt, and easily get home.

He'd be better off pouring whiskey on the wound and slugging down some of the bottle to keep going than hitting himself with morphine. Morphine will screw up his judgement and motor skills than a third bottle of 151.

People take outer thigh wounds and just grit their teeth, and keep right on going until medical aid was gotten hours later.

People take a slight graze to the outer thigh and go down screaming.

50 Foot Ant said:

I'm not sure how morphine works on normal people, I have a psychotic reaction to it and just go absolutely crazy and violent..

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About a third of patients in my experience didn't tolerate morphine for that same thing or it didn't help the pain or made them itch intolerably

50 Foot Ant said:

He'd be better off pouring whiskey on the wound and slugging down some of the bottle to keep going than hitting himself with morphine. Morphine will screw up his judgement and motor skills than a third bottle of 151.
.

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Actually bullet wounds tend not to get infected if they are clean. We used to joke in residency how the bullets must go too fast for the bugs to hold on. It's the slogging around in the swamp/dirt or people with this need to mess with the wound that is the problem. "Hey, waldo got shot once. Let's let him dig out the bullet!"

Whiskey for pain relief might be better for some. Unless they're a mean or stupid drunk. Just like morphine, some people tolerate one thing better or worse than the next.

Leg wounds

I had multiple gunshot wounds from a .30 caliber carbine.

In and out the center of a booted foot. Two bones broken.

In and out the lower leg shin area. No bone involved.

In the calf muscle. No bone involved.

In and out the inner thigh. No bone involved.

I left the boot on, applied tie-on bandages to lower leg wounds, and held a direct pressure bandage to the exit thigh wound with one hand while hobbling two km to evacuation. At first opportunity I used a wooden staff for a crutch. There was no pain for a 30-40 minutes, then lots of pain, particularly in the booted foot.

I received morphine during evacuation, but either from loss of blood or fainting from "the vapors" like a Victorian character, I was out most of the way to a medical facility.

The worst pain was later at the hands of physical terrorists sometimes called physical therapists, ha ha ha.

Chase said:

I had multiple gunshot wounds from a .30 caliber carbine.

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Nam?

GeorgeK said:

Nam?

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No, but my girlfriend is in anger management and I now hide her ammo.

Just kidding. You know .30 cal. carbine history. I was a tactical firearms instructor attached to 173rd Long Range Reconnaisance Division and hung out a lot with guys who wore heavy facial makeup.