End of life care and steroids withdrawn

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My mum has endometrial cancer which has spread to other areas. She is now at home on palliative care after a short stay in hospital. She was given steroids in hospital which gave her some energy and an appetite, these have now been withdrawn whilst in community care and we've asked if she can go back onto a low dose just to give her some quality of life for the short time that remains. We have been told that they don't use steroids for fatigue and appetite whilst in palliative community care. We are finding it very hard to see why not if it just gives her a better quality of life for family to say their last goodbyes. Any help or advice please, as we just want to keep asking the questions to the very end to help mum. Thank you for reading.

  • Hi Kirk

    we're also at the community palliative care phase on this journey, My husband was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumour in Sept 2020 and we were handed off to palliative care at the end of February this year.

    Medication is a tricky one but by my understanding its about giving the person the best quality of life at this point so if I were you I'd challenge the steroid withdrawal with your mum's GP. My other half is on steroids and the hospice consultant wanted to stop them recently. I asked if we could go from 2 to 1 pill a day for a week or two first. G had a seizure/episode ten days later and the answer was to up the steroids again. Touch wood, there's been no repeat.

    love n hugs

    Wee Me xx

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