Liver failure and now kidneys struggling

[Iamsodonewith2020]

My Dad was diagnosed with chirrosis last month and discharged from hospital 3 weeks ago. Last night he collapsed at home and was blue lighted to hospital with heart rate of just 20bpm. On admission they have discovered very high potassium levels in his blood and minimal urine output.
Hospital have mentioned dialysis but he has just been moved to ITU aswell.
I am googling and everything I read suggests liver failure and then kidney failure is certain death within weeks. Just 5 weeks ago he was just a diabetic with arthritis in his hand and had never had a hospital admission and now it looks like he may die. Does anyone have experience of end stage liver failure as this is what it seems to be??

No experience but I’m sorry your father is so ill.

Will you be able to have a proper conversation with hospital consultants soon?

Giving you a bump- I’m sorry.

Thank you
Hospital consultants are loathe to give anaccurate picture until after dialysis. Apparently though the cocktail of drugs he was given at last admission have led to kidney failure

I’m sorry, I do. I lost my mum to it almost two years ago. Very sudden and during lockdown. She was admitted on the Wednesday and died the Sunday evening. I’m sorry you’re going through this. We were told by the consultant that she might pull through but it just didn’t happen. I’ve heard, from doing so much research since, that people can turn it around but unfortunately my mum was still drinking. Not heaving but enough.

The worst thing about it is he doesn’t drink, never has since his twenties. It appears to be caused by medication taken

Depends how bad his cirrhosis is. Kidneys can be dealt with via dialysis and a change to the medication that's caused the kidney issue. Did his cirrhosis cause jaundice? Ascites? Had he been coughing up blood? Was he confused?

He had 11 litres of fluid drained from abdomen last month

They also had to tie off some swollen veins in oesophagus

Which medication caused his liver damage?

Sorry you are going through this

We have no idea. He is 17 different medications a day, some up to 5 times a day. He has heart medications, medications for his daiabetes, medication for indigestion and medications for anxiety and insomnia. 3 weeks ago they added medications to help with his liver. They have taken him off all new medication currently and are going to add them back in one at a time to see what’s going on

I've been through this with my dad. He did end up on dialysis and was in ICU but he managed to rally and survive it. He was in hospital for about 6 weeks that time. We had several bouts like this however, over the course of three years or so. He was a drinker and it eventually killed him. He also suffered from the varices in his esophagus and they were pretty horrendous. Unfortunately he didn't make it and died after mass organ failure.

Similarly to some previous posters my DM was an alcoholic and she died from cirrhosis/sepsis although her kidneys were failing many times and she was hospitalised for it. She lived for almost 10 years with acute liver failure which was much longer than expected, but her quality of life in the last 6 years was very low. Hope your dad pulls through OP.

Did you know much about his health before the diagnosis of cirrhosis? It’s possible his diabetes was much more of a problem than he was telling you.

His diabetes has been very poorly monitored during covid. His ascites was pointed out to diabetic nurse who he saw in GP practise and she just told him he needed to exercise more. He couldn’t walk more than about 50m because of his arthritis. Weirdly his last bloods results and check up only 2 weeks before first hospital admission have vanished from his records even though they were there initially. I know they were as I helped him set up his online access and explained the results to him

It clearly showed kidney and liver function bloods being hugely out of the normal range. However they did nothing (I think a receptionist inputted them and a GP never reviewed them) and he was blue lighted 9 days after those results were available. Hospital can’t understand how my dad wasn’t sent to hospital immediately after bloods were seen by GP

At the point the ascites was pointed out his liver failure hadn’t been diagnosed. She just saw severely swollen feet and said he needed to exercise more

@Iamsodonewith2020

At the point the ascites was pointed out his liver failure hadn’t been diagnosed. She just saw severely swollen feet and said he needed to exercise more

!!!!!!!

My late dp died of cirrhosis, his kidneys failed 10 days before he passed away. It all came out of the blue, he woke up one morning looking 9 months pregnant with triplets, he was an alcoholic & from being diagnosed to him passing away was 4 months.