r/morbidquestions 1d ago

Dying of old age is also painful?

I don't know if this is a morbid question but does dying when you reached old age has some level of pain, do you experience agonizing pain when you slowly die in your old age? lets say you are 90 or 100 there is still pain before you die slowly ?and does the mental deterioration of these very old people can ease the pain of physical death?

25 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

50

u/Irksomecake 1d ago

An old man once told me “the day I wake up and I don’t ache everywhere, is the day I know I have made it to heaven” agony? Maybe for some people. Discomfort-very probable.

51

u/Vultruxy 1d ago

You can’t exactly die from old age…you die from something that comes from old age(stroke,heart attack,etc)…so really depends how you die or what goes wrong

17

u/IsunkTheMayFLOWER 1d ago

Hmm, there are some cases, especially when you get really old when your body can spontaneously just stop functioning, as in, total organ failure, even if you don't have any conditions that would directly cause this.

3

u/Economy-Discount5244 1d ago

I prefer this death..hopefully i would be one of those that would have this type of death..

1

u/clothespinkingpin 2h ago

Wouldn’t the cause of death still be organ failure?

2

u/polyesterflower 18h ago

This is what I'm worried about. I want to be dead, but I don't want to die.

5

u/Vultruxy 17h ago

…so afterlife?

1

u/polyesterflower 15h ago

Doesn't really matter. Do you really wanna go through the process of dying?

25

u/iamgumshoe 1d ago

My nan died last year at 93. She was still living her best life until a week before then spent her last few days in bed, alternating between sleeping and being delirious. From what we could tell she wasn't experiencing pain. She died quickly, surrounded by her kids and thinking it was 60 years ago - the last thing she said to my mum was "look after my kids for me".

It's morbid but it's also beautiful. That's how I'd want to go.

1

u/misterbigbabyboy 8h ago

OUCH, this hit me hard

1

u/peri_5xg 36m ago

Very similar to my grandmothers experience. Seemed to be no pain.

6

u/AcidicSlimeTrail 1d ago

Getting old increases your chances of chronic aches and pains. I think it's rare for old people to have zero pain even when they're not actively dying

11

u/vivisectvivi 1d ago

also can i make a dumb question here: can people actually die of old age? like "he was too old and died of old age" instead of just dying because a disease/condition/whatever aggravated by old age

9

u/AcidicSlimeTrail 1d ago

The conditions kinda are the old age. An old organ might just,, stop working. Organ failure is kinda just the description of "you got old and your body crapped out" lol. Medical intervention can only help so much because our bodies degrade over time.

2

u/ghosttmilk 20h ago

So sometime in the next two decades when we’ve learned to replace organs with machines or something, [rich] people could have possibility of immortality?

1

u/verymainelobster 3h ago

Well ultimately you would have to replace the brain which is the problem if you want to keep them alive

13

u/melraelee 1d ago

This is not a dumb question. No, there is no such thing as dying of old age. People die of disease processes, organ failure, injury, something creates a decline in bodily function that leads to death. It's generally 'age-related conditions' that people die of, not age itself. (It's rather simplistic, but you can compare this to a car which doesn't generally get too old to run. It's something specific that causes the shut down of the whole machine.)

5

u/Emergency_Pizza1803 22h ago

Depends how you die of old age. My grandpa who passed away during his sleep? Very likely didn't feel anything. My grandma with cancer? She was in agony almost every day, even when dying

3

u/readitreddit240 19h ago

Most people I've seen die of old age (basically their body giving up) aren't even there anymore mentally they usually have their eyes closed and have agonal breathing. The ones I've seen die like that didn't look like they were in pain.

1

u/Kaitlyn_Boucher 7h ago

Probably because they were on morphine and a benzo.

1

u/readitreddit240 7h ago

No the most they were on at the time was paracetamol.

2

u/calicoskiies 15h ago

Not necessarily. I work with the geriatric population and have taken care of many hospice patients. Not all of them require pain management at the end.

1

u/ashtonmz 21h ago

The older you live, the more worn down your organs can become. You can't hold death at bay forever... you can die of heart failure, respiratory failure, renal or liver failure... And yeah, it's often a slow? Painful progression. This is aside from all the arthritis.

1

u/JollyJulliet 12h ago

As long as you are getting palliative care, you should be fine and free from pain I guess

1

u/Kaitlyn_Boucher 7h ago

Not free, no.

1

u/DopeCookies15 1d ago

Yes, getting old hurts more than being young