surgery

[Guest guest]

Geese...I hate not being able to get on the web every night. Oh

well, I'll soon be in my own home. We are moving in on October

15th. I can't wait. Anyway, I was feeling much better since last

Saturday's attack. Then today, I woke up with that " extreme

fatigue " feeling again, and then I've started in with some nausea

and pain. So far, things are under control. I hope that I'm NOT

going to have another flare so soon. I still feel pretty beat up

from last weekend. I spoke with Dr. Lehman on Monday and he

explained my options. 1. I can just live with it, 2. I can get a

feeding tube, 3. I can try the hormone shots, 4. I can try multiple

stents with trying to stretch open the panc duct, 5. or have open

surgery to remove the beginning portion of the panc duct where the

stricture is. Can anyone share with me the procedure that involves

surgery? I refuse to do the feeding tube. I haven't heard many

success stories with the hormone shots, and I won't just sit here

for another 7 years and do nothing! So I told my doc that I

will " live " with it for a couple of more months (if I can stand it)

and then let him know what I decide. I am going between the

multiple stenting and the open surgery. I was wondering if anyone

here had some kind of surgery to remove part of the pancreas duct.

If so, could you please share your experience with me. Thanks, and

I hope everyone is doing ok.

Take care

Kris in TN

[Guest guest]

Kris,

I had a Transduodenal Ampullory Resection back in 2001. This was to

remove a polyp that was at my Papilla which was causing a blockage

and all of my pancreatic attacks. They removed the lining of my

duodenum, and also removed a small section of my pancreatic duct.

This worked well for 3 months after the surgery, but then scar

tissue set in and caused further problems for me. It took multiple

stenting and 2 sphincterotomies to finally correct the problem.

My opinion, and I stress MY opinion would be to go with the surgery

as first option, simply because if you start with the multiple

stenting and that doesn't work, then you would have to do the

surgery, and if as in my case, scar tissue/adhesions set in, you

would then have to have multiple stenting and possible

sphincterotomies at some stage after that.

Now this might not occur as everyone is different, but is one

scenario that I believe could happen. If going by my opinion, it

would just eliminate some of the ERCP's in the beginning. But then

if the stenting did work well enough, you might not need the surgery

in the long run.

I honestly think this is one of those times when you may need to do

a pro/con list and see which one outweighs the other. Goodluck with

whichever decision you choose.

Regards,

in TN/soon to be VA..