Question
What is the reason to increase an ICU patient's morphine dose from 2mcg/h to 10mcg/h?  Is that a terminal dose?

Answer
Hi Sullivan and thanks for writing,

Narcotic doses can be very high for people with acute and/or chronic pain, there is no specific "terminal dose".

The trick with narcotics is to find the dose that works for the person and it can go up to 100's of mgs. Generally the doses are increased gradually, but you also consider all analgesics given, so if a person is taking 10 mcg/hr of Morphine on top of Tylenol #3 and breakthrough liquid Morphine, the doctor may calculate the total hourly analgesic dose and switch it all to Morphine.

I hope this answers your question,

Margot