Guest guest Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 To Esther, who posted on Nov. 3: I'm sending this both to the board and to you individually. Maybe I've missed something, but I don't believe you were ever answered about your problem: " My husband has suffered from pancreatitis for over 20 years now. At this time his pancreas is totally shot, he is a brittle diabetic and is down to 123 lb. He is 5'8 " tall and is on a totally fat free diet. As far as I'm concerned the doctors in this smaller town (25,000- Oregon) are killing him. He's 47 years old and I don't think he is going to make it 3 months. " Well, I do think someone mentioned a place to go or something in Oregon. Anyway, I just wanted to empathize with you. I felt that my husband wasn't going to make it either. Last April he had such a massive infection related to his pseudocysts that his white blood count was 40,000. He was rushed to his doctor at Duke by ambulance (120 miles). He went for months on a J-tube attached past the pancreas for nutrition so as to rest the pancreas. That did the trick finally. After a stint replacement (the first one lasted several months before it got blocked), he can now eat pretty much anything reasonable (we keep fat grams around 30 a day), takes enzymes with meals, and has gained from 104 to 135 (he's 5'-9 " and 55 years old). December 5 he is having surgery to replace the stent with " something permanent. " Maybe someone else on the Board can enlighten me (I wasn't at the last appointment when this was decided definitely) as to what this surgery is called. I hope you can find a doctor who can help your husband, but you may have to travel quite a distance. The doctors in our small town in NC (18,000) were not knowledgeable enough about pancreatitis but at least they knew enough to send us to Duke! Feel free to e-mail me directly at banjolovers@... if you want to chat about this disease or anything else. Ginny White, Statesville, NC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 Ginny, do you know how long the surgery is supposed to last? Is it endscopic surgery or are they going through the abdominal wall? If they are going through the abdominal wall, he may be having a sphincteroplasty, where they manually widen the ducts instead of using a stent. What they do with a sphincteroplasty is they slice the ducts diagonally and then resew them together horizonatlly to make the duct wider. I had that done and it gave me about 4 to 5 years of no pancreas problems. Unfortunately, for me, my pancreas was so damaged that it eventually started up again. My problem is that my ducts are too small and too close together, so that if one gets blocked for any reason, the other gets cut off too. Widening them couldn't help the fact that the ducts are too close together (I have pancreas divisum so I have two parallel ducts instead of a y-shaped duct). That's about the best guess I can make as to what they might be doing to make the duct wider permanently. Kimber -- Kimber Vallejo, CA hominid2@... Note: All advice given is personal opinion, not equal to that of a licensed physician or health care professional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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