hallucinations after bypass surgery

Question

My neighbors husband had bypass surgery 2wks. ago. He seemed to be recovering very well. Last night, he began hallucinating that he was seeing people that were not there, pretended to play poker having full conversations with again people not in the room. Many other weird things. He has had no prior issues with this. They have been in an emergency room for over 4hrs and have not been seen yet. My friend is scared to death. Any idea what might be going on?

ed34 · Answer

It's better to be safe than sorry. In hospital wards, it's quite often they blame hallucinations or drowsiness on meds too and it isn't until they come off the meds they realise there is a problem.

Jozhemp03 · Answer

Thank you for your comments. My Dad is having the same issues. He had a valve replacement and Aorta replacement done in December and he is still having hallucinations. His oxygen levels are fine when they checked it on his finger. They did find he had some old blood left in the chest cavity causing him some breathing issues, so that was removed and he is now home on oxygen. I am definitely going to ask the doc to do the test you recommended.

ed34 · Answer

It is worth demanding a very simple test. In July this year after surgery my Wife kept talking strangely and having cat naps inbetween sentences. She then started to see people that were not there and believed the doctors were conspiring to kill her. They kept telling me it was the morphine. I remembered my wife was on morphine during her radiotherapy and it didn't have that effect so I complained. Her sats according to the simple finger clip was 92-96% which is why they weren't worried. However a simple test showed that the pressure of the oxygen in her blood was at around 60% and she needed to be put onto an ventilator. Hopefully they have done this very simple test which takes just 2 minutes and then the meds can be blamed. Im not trying to paint bad pictures, I simply believe to be safe is far better than to be sorry.

erijon · Answer

Same thing happened to my father when he came home after his CABG. When I got into town to take care of him the first night he thought he was on a train in the "old" country with his friends. I discussed it with his docs and they said it was the pain meds. 

Jon

ed34 · Answer

hallucinations are normally due to drugs or an oxygen deficiency to the brain. I assume they are doing blood gas measurements?

mammo · Answer

I would look at any medications he is on, as some can cause hallucinations.  I'm glad he's at the ER, this is not normal under any circumstances.

JanisLee · Answer

I don't know that he needs an ER...I believe he has become a bit clairvoyant.

I had a CABG, too, but saw things prior to that and see similar things to this day...seeing on a different plane. I don't believe he's going crazy or anything like that. I wonder if his heart stopped at any point during the surgery. It would be likely that it had for this to appear suddenly to him.

Some people are very skeptical about such things, if you or they are, so be it. I enjoy it.