Re: bowel movements-

[Guest guest]

Dont be emabarrassed a lot of people ask the very same question.

Diferent people will absorb or not absorb different foods.

Personally I did not absorb fats and proteins however I did absorbs

carbs. The pancrease makes many many different types of enzymes and

each enzyme is specific to a food type. Lactase breaks down lactose,

sucrase breaks down sucrose, fructase breaks down fructose and so on

so forth, there are many many enzymes. Fats and proteins are complex

molecules made of of many things and take more enzymes to break them

down. Look at a cheeseburger for instance. The bread is a carb made

up of simple sugars and wheat flour. However the cheese and meat

have both fats as well as proteins within them (amongst other stuff)

so it takes more then afew enzymes to break them down to small enough

components to be absorbed.

Most food is chopped up by chewing and in the stomach then reach the

intestine to be further broken down to small enough molecules that

can be absorbed at a cellular level through the intestinal mucosa.

Some foods are never borken down entirely and are passed with the

stool. Corn and tomato skins for instance. Not everybody will have

undigested foods pass in their stool.

Often one of the first signs a person will see in their stool that

indicates absorbtion difficuties will be a orange-greenish-yellowy

looking stool. Ths would indicate a disturbance in the bodies

ability to reabsorb bile. One would need enzymes for that as well.

It is thought that different parts of the panc creat the different

enzymes adn that the aborbtion -v- enzyme distribution could possibly

be indicative of where the panc malfunction may lay. However that

has not been scientifically proven and is just a thought. More

people have fat and protein malabsortion due to the increased amount

of enzymes it would take to break them down. When the enzymes are

not released they begin to break down the pancreas itself, causing

pain etc. That is why a low fat diet is recommended.

The classic stooll appearance of pancreatic insuffiency would be that

of steatorrhea, fat ladened stool. The very smelly pale cream

colored stool that floats on the bowel water and can be difficult to

flush. They can look very different with each person, it may appear

more grey or more white depending on what other parts of the meal a

person has consumed and absorbed. When I had a drain in my

panccreatic ducts and then with no pancreas any longer mine appeard

to be the cream colored floating variety.

Please keep in mind tht not every ones stools will apepear the same

at any given time. The pancreas is still a huge mystery in a lot of

regards. The pancreas receives hormonal signals from your mouth the

minute you start to chew and as the food passes down through your

stomach and into the first part of the intestine your body continues

to send those hormonal messages so your pancreas is already makeing

the enzymes it needs to break down the food. The amount of enzymes

that are released will vary from one person to the next as well as

from one day to the next depending on where the insufficieny is

coming from, where the pancreas is injured.

I hope I answered your question and please understand that this a

very very basic explanation of pancreatic function. If you had a

postive test for fat in your stools then that means at one point you

were not releaseing the necessary enzymes to break down those fat

molecules. That may or may not be significant. You may have had a

small stone blocking the ducts the enzymes need to travel down and

then passed that stone at a later time allowing the ducst to flow

again, and why the next time you had the test it was negative. I

dont know. Whether or not that means you have cp, only your doctor

can confirm that by perfoming the necessary tests. From what you

have written in your posts in sounds as tho he is doing just that.

It seems like you have a really good doctor who is going to do what

it takes to help you.

Keep us posted on how things go and I do hope that you feel better

soon. If there is anything else that I can help you with dont

hesitate. I apologise for having taken so long to get back to you

but I have had alot on my plate andhave to admit I had missed your

post. Sorry about that.

Warmly,