(No subject)

[Guest guest]

Hello everyone! I am new to the group (about a week)and have been

reading all the postings and just feel right at home! I am sorry if

this becomes to long.

I am 28 years old and have not been officially diagnosed with CP.

In 1999 I started having epigastric pain. It would come and

go..mostly felt like a pressure. So I go to my PCP and they do a

ultra-sound checking out my gallbladder. Gallbladder was fine but

they found a tumor on my adrenal gland and I had to have surgery to

have it removed. My epigastric pain did come back but most of the

time I just TRIED to ignore it. It got to be so bothersome that I

went back to my PCP. She put me on Tagament but decided to order a

CT just to check things out. They ended up finding a muscinous cyst

on the tail of my pancreas. Since this type of cyst is either

cancerous or likely becomes they wanted to remove it as soon as

possible. So in August of 2000 I had the surgery. The surgeon told

me that he successfully removed the cyst and took almost half of my

pancreas because there was some inflammation which he said my

indicate a " touch of pancreatitis " . Isn't the defination of

pancreatitis inflammation of the pancreas? While I was in the

hospital after the surgery I had what I call my first severe

attack. The pain was unbearable even with the morphine that I was

able to hit every 5 minutes. I was complaining of horrible

epigastric pain and my left shoulder hurt so bad. Just gas I was

told by the nurses. My family asked to have the surgeon come and

check on me. Not only was I in miserable pain from the 10 " incision

but I was having this horrible attack on top of it all! The surgeon

said that it was nothing to worry about just my intestines going

back into place after the trauma of the surgery. Added another med

on top of the morphine and left. Made not a lot of sense to me, but

his the doctor.

Not once did anyone mention the " pancreatitis " word to me again. Had

another attack 2 months after my surgery. I still didn't know what

the pain was and I was afraid it was a complication from the

surgery. I went to the ER and was sent home with vicodin. They did

check my a & l's at that time. But I guess they weren't elevated.

At that time I had no clue what a & l's were! Until about 3 months

ago I had felt pretty good most of the time. I would get the

pressure in my upper abdomen but just thought that I would have to

learn to deal with it, along with the diaherra(sp?)and most of the

time I can. Then in May I was having horrible back pain. They

thought it was kidney stones. They ordered an IVP and that came

back clear..no stones. My PCP started to put things together and

suspected my pancreas. She reffered me to GI. GI had ordered CT

and also thought CP to be a fair diagnosis, I was anxiously awaiting

my appointment. Then things got really bad for about 1 week. I

ended up in ER and can guess what happened? I was sent home with

vicodin. The ER doc made me feel like I had no reason to be there.

I had told her that my PCP & GI were suspecting CP. She said that

was impossible because the chest x-rays were fine and the amylase

was only at 175. Not elevated enough for CP.

I will hopefully get my CT results tomorrow (9-6-02). I am not as

excited about getting them as I was because now I know how difficult

this is to diagnos and that CT's can look fine. I am almost

positive that SOMETHING is wrong with what's left of my pancreas. I

just want definite answers so I can move on with my life and start

to deal with whatever it may be. I am far more educated on the

pancreas now so I will have some ammunition for my GI if he tries to

blow me off.

Sorry this turned into such a long posting. I just needed to vent a

little. I am sorry to hear how much constant pain some of you are

always in. Is this what I have to look forward to? Will mine get

this bad? It already has seem to get progressively worse over the

past 3 months. I am scarred but it is nice to know that I have a

place to come were everybody understands me.

Thank you all!!

Marisa

San Diego, CA