Cirrhosis and its effects on the brain - hepatic encephalopathy
Hello, my stepfather is in the end stages of heart failure and was recently diagnosed with end stage cirrhosis of the liver as a result of the heart failure.
I know almost nothing about this condition, so forgive my ignorance here. Immediately before the cirrhosis diagnosis he was sleeping almost all of the time and not really alert when he was awake. Once he was diagnosed and put on a medicine to lower his ammonia levels, he seems like an entirely different person.
He seems to be in what I can only describe as a manic state. He is hyper and alert, but also confused. He has become obsessed with hunting, something he enjoyed when he was younger but has not been able to do in a long time due to his heart failure (among several other conditions) and being in a wheelchair. He has spent quite a bit of money on hunting gear and a new rifle, but he is spending money that he doesn't really have and seems to have no concept of that. He has ideas of starting to drive and work again, but these are things he has not been physically able to do for many years. There are other things that he is doing that is causing a lot of stress on my mother, but I won't get into all of the details here.
The doctors called this condition hepatic encephalopathy. Does anyone here have any experience with this? Does this sound normal, and what can we expect moving forward?
I appreciate any and all help understanding this.