My mom has stage IV lung cancer, which has spread everywhere. She also has a very large tumor on her liver along with cirrhosis. She was given Dilantin for seizures a couple of weeks ago, and we have noticed she is extreamly fatigued and disoriented. She sleeps all the time. Could this be a sign her liver is failing? is the dilantin making it worse?
My mom has stage IV lung cancer, which has spread everywhere. She also has a very large tumor on her liver along with cirrhosis. She was given Dilantin for seizures a couple of weeks ago, and we have noticed she is extreamly fatigued and disoriented. She sleeps all the time. Could this be a sign her liver is failing? is the dilantin making it worse?
Sorry about your Mother. There are several cautions regarding this drug (barbiturate) and liver diseases. It exacerbates the liver function. The symptoms you describe are an indication of deepening liver function.
The Dr. has to know this and probably decided that he had no choice. If your Mom gets a bronze skin tone and yellowing of her eyes and perhaps a "pulled muscle" feeling in her liver, then she is getting worse. However, she may stabilize and level out. You might want to ask her Dr. about your concerns.
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It is better to try and bear the ills we have, than to anticipate those which may never come....Rochefoucauld
Sorry about your Mother. There are several cautions regarding this drug (barbiturate) and liver diseases. It exacerbates the liver function. The symptoms you describe are an indication of deepening liver function.
The Dr. has to know this and probably decided that he had no choice. If your Mom gets a bronze skin tone and yellowing of her eyes and perhaps a "pulled muscle" feeling in her liver, then she is getting worse. However, she may stabilize and level out. You might want to ask her Dr. about your concerns.
Thanks for the info. What you describe sounds like what she is going through, especially the "pulled muscle" feeling. We have mentioned it to the nurse, who was going to pass along our concerns to the doc. Do you know if there is anything they can do at this point to improve her liver function?
Thanks for the info. What you describe sounds like what she is going through, especially the "pulled muscle" feeling. We have mentioned it to the nurse, who was going to pass along our concerns to the doc. Do you know if there is anything they can do at this point to improve her liver function?
That's a difficult question...what to do?
Well, since I'm not there to see how affected she is....how long has her condition been sliding down? I would guess that she is in a good deal of pain. Depending on if her health is quickly failing, anything dramatic right now may hurt her more. Maybe the Dr. will have to put her in intensive care to be carefully watched. It is possible that her liver is cancerous by means of metasthesis. If her skin does have a definite copper tone and eyes are yellow, she is jaundiced. How is her mental state? Does she seem confused or not making sense? If she has portal hypertension, and she can withstand surgery, her portal vein could be shunted. What is the prognosis of her lung cancer? How is it being treated? How old is your mother? What other ailments are there? What treatments have she had? What exactly are her complete diagnoses.
Please let me know, and I will offer any advise that I am capable of. Remember that I am not a Dr. I have done so much research on this subject because of my sister's, girlfriend, mother and fathers death. Also, because of my cirrhosis, hepatitis, lung nodules, pancreatitis etc.
Right now just keep her as comfortable as possible. Give her an abundance of love.
__________________
It is better to try and bear the ills we have, than to anticipate those which may never come....Rochefoucauld
That's a difficult question...what to do?
Well, since I'm not there to see how affected she is....how long has her condition been sliding down? I would guess that she is in a good deal of pain. Depending on if her health is quickly failing, anything dramatic right now may hurt her more. Maybe the Dr. will have to put her in intensive care to be carefully watched. It is possible that her liver is cancerous by means of metasthesis. If her skin does have a definite copper tone and eyes are yellow, she is jaundiced. How is her mental state? Does she seem confused or not making sense? If she has portal hypertension, and she can withstand surgery, her portal vein could be shunted. What is the prognosis of her lung cancer? How is it being treated? How old is your mother? What other ailments are there? What treatments have she had? What exactly are her complete diagnoses.
Please let me know, and I will offer any advise that I am capable of. Remember that I am not a Dr. I have done so much research on this subject because of my sister's, girlfriend, mother and fathers death. Also, because of my cirrhosis, hepatitis, lung nodules, pancreatitis etc.
Right now just keep her as comfortable as possible. Give her an abundance of love.
Her skin has a copper color, but not really her eyes. She is 57, she has stage IV lung cancer, with mets to the brain, lumph nodes and liver. She started going down hill pretty quick, right after Christmas. She has had surgical resection of one of the brain tumors. She recently had whole brain radiation for the numerous other mets. She did chemo with Avastin and Tarceva, but those did not seem to work. She also has a massive tumor on her neck, that they did radiation on.
She basically sleeps all the time, and is only up for about 20 min. She claims that she is not in pain, but the doctors say this is impossible.
