Re: congential pancreatitis??

[Guest guest]

My daughter has familial pancreatitis.She's 21 and suffered symptoms since

age 7-diagnosis finally came at age16.Is there a family history of

pancreatitis?My dad had it-also a sister and nephew have it.Diabetes is also

in my

family.My daughter had a blood test to determine she had a mutated gene that

caused her to have pancreatitis.That was done after she had whipple surgery,her

gallbladder removed and hundreds of stones removed from her pancreas.It's hard

being mom when your child is in so much pain.Find a good GI doc to help with

diagnosis.If she's got pancreatitis,they can help with pain and nausea as

well as malabsorption.Good luck and God bless!

[Guest guest]

Hi,

there are a couple of congenital problems with pancreatitis that

comes to mind: one is pancreas divisum, in which the ducts

haven't fused, incomplete pancreas divisum in which the ducts

have only fused slightly and annular pancreas in which the

pancreas has grown, ring-like, around the duodenum. There

also are cases when you are born without a pancreas but I think

you can eliminate that in your daughters case. Congenital

problems are not hereditary - they are " birth defects " that is,

something went wrong in the developing fetus. For example, in

pancreas divisum, it is known that this occurs during the 7 or 8

week of gestation. Usually the only way to diagnose any of these

is by ERCP although, MRCP has been recently advocated.

Hereditary pancreatitis though includes those born with the CF

gene, those with other genetic mutattions as well as idiopathic

hereditary pancreatitis. Usually this will suface when a family

history is done....that there are members of her family going back

a few generations, that have pancreas, or abdominal problems.

Some of these gene abnormalities can be tested for by taking

blood samples. I am not as knowledgeable about this kind of

pancreatitis as I am about the congenital kind (I have divisum).

There are lots of good sites to get more information about the

various causes of pancreatitis. And I think you will get some

good information from people here too.

Laurie