Living with Advanced MS? Watch this video to learn more.
Hepatic Encephalopathy  What is hepatic encephalopathy?  Hepatic
(he-PAT-ik) encephalopathy (en-sef-ah-LOP-ah-the) is a condition
affecting your brain due to liver disease. One of the functions
of the liver is to clean blood coming from the gastrointestinal
system. The gastrointestinal system includes your stomach and
the intestines. Blood from the gastrointestinal system often
contains ammonia and toxins made by intestinal bacteria (germs).
Normally, the blood is cleaned in the liver by turning these
harmful substances into less harmful products. The clean blood
then goes to the lungs to get oxygen before going to the heart.
The heart then pumps the blood to all parts of the body,
including the brain.  With this condition, there may be a
problem in the blood flow into the liver. This happens when
blood does not easily go into the liver because of liver
disease. When blood cannot flow into the liver, it uses other
blood vessels to return to the heart.