diet help please

hi all,

I'm new to this board, but have found great encouragement and advice reading through the posts the past several months. I'm the primary caretaker for my mother, 58, who has HCC, Hep C, ascites, & cirrhosis. She currently has a MELD of 21 in CA, and is not doing too well. Very jaundiced, tired, moody, swollen feet, and the beginnings of encephalopathy. She is also diabetic. All this being said, I have to keep her on a low-sodium, low-potassium, diabetic-friendly diet, all combined with a 1L fluid restriction. She has lost lots of muscle mass, and the dietician said it's important to try to help her gain weight, particularly muscle weight. This has felt almost impossible at times with all of the restrictions and her general lack of appetite/nausea, and I feel overwhelmed. I've also read that many liver failure patients also have protein restrictions to prevent the confusion. She also has dry mouth probably from all of the diuretics and Lactulose she takes, and constantly wants ice cubes.

I'm hoping to hear from some people that have experienced or gone through the same set of circumstances, and have any menu ideas or tips that you've learned throughout the way. Anything would be greatly appreciated! I just want to get my mom in the best condition I can before a transplant (God willing).

Hello Hopesprings and welcome to HealingWell.  So sorry that your mom has this disease.   But I'd like a commend you for taking care of her.  It is not easy by a long shot.

Have you read our educational post in Hep resource thread near the top of the forum.   It talks about protein in the diet.  The one thing to limit is the beef.  It's the hardest for the liver to process.  My husband had an encephalopathy issue whenever he would eat it.  I learned quick to remove it from his diet as much as possible. 

Take care.......thoughts and prayers.......      

Thanks everyone! And Connie, mom's already been through 4 TACE treatments and 1 RFA for her tumors, the goal being to shrink them so that she could get extra points on her MELD score for having cancer, and also to be eligible at all for transplant. Whilte the 4 TACE didn't really do much other than cause her great discomfort, the RFA was successful and now she only has one small tumor. However, it also burned off what good part of her liver was left (which wasn't much to start with), so her liver failure has accelerated. They told us transplant was the only option since her liver was in such poor shape.