New Member and my story

[Guest guest]

Hello Everyone, I am a new member and quite happy to find a group

forum on pancreatitis. In November 2003, quite recent, I had an

acute pancreatitis attack. Whereas, my amylase was not abnormally

high ~60, my lipase was 667 along with elevated liver enzymes. I

awoke in the middle of the night with nausea, pain, and vomiting and

was quickly rushed to the hospital. There I spent a week in pain

and nausea (although I did get plenty of anti-pain and nausea

medicine) and had an endoscopy, Hida Scan, and CT scan of my abdomen

with the finding that I had a slightly enlarged pancreas and a low-

normal gallbladder ejection fraction of 35%. The results seemed to

suggest Ideopathic acute pancreatitis and unfortunately my current

physician of 10 years seems to perpetuate this myth even though

since early november I have had 4 other attacks of pain but with

only small bouts of nausea.

Because I dont often have faith in my doctor when it comes to

strange medical problems (he is quite good at fixing obvious medical

problems but has to much ego when it comes to the less obvious

problem) I went in the middle of December to a wellknown

Gastroenterologist in Connecticut and today I had an MRCP done.

This GI thinks I may have a pancreas divisium and blocked ducts that

were not apparent on the other tests. I hope he finds something and

after speaking with him at my appoinment he seemes quite confident

but not ego-centric that there may be a " real " reason for the

attack. It is good to point out that my entire family either has

had or should have had their gallbladders removed so it may be that

also.

On top of the pancreatitis, I am also diabetic and have gastro

paresis due to the diabetes. For the gastroparesis I take Reglan

which seems to work well and the GI doctor also said that the Reglan

may help with the nausea when I do have any painful attacks. I also

take humulog insulin for the diabetes using an insulin pump.

I am looking forward to reading about how others are dealing with

their health and thanks for having a forum on the issue-tom