Have any of you dealt with chronic pancreatitis? My boyfriend just left the hospital after 3 days of treatment, which came after 6 months of acute pancreatitis episodes.
This was caused by drinking, which I think has finally sunk in for him. I can’t do anything about his drinking other than be part of the support that keeps him from going back to it. It’s mostly up to him.
He’s got follow ups still with the GI team at the hospital so hopefully we can get more details of how else he needs to change his eating habits.
But I was just curious if anyone else has come out the other end of chronic pancreatitis and what did you eat as you got back to solid foods? We’re you able to stave off any future flare ups? Any tips or insight you’d like to share?
I don’t want to hear about anyone who has died from pancreatitis. Right now I’m existing on a high of “finally he has gotten the care he needs!”
I did some searching and saw QtM mention that 80% of people who go through chronic pancreatitis end up diabetic. Yikes.
Between my T2 diabetes and my best friend’s T1 and now my guy’s pancreatitis I feel like I should be a pancreatic expert by now! Lemme tell ya about exocrine vs endocrine function!
I had a neighbor who had what they thought at first was pancreatic cancer that instead turned out to be raging pancreatitis. AFAIK he was not a heavy drinker and I don’t know how the whole thing started. I first met him shortly post-diagnosis and on the recovery trail.
Fast forwarding, he is still alive and doing well enough for 70+ yo 8 years later. Recovery was a bitch and he went from ~180lb pre-illness to ~130lb now. He’s one of the very few guys our age scrawnier than me, and at a glance now it’s clear he’s the victim of a severe health crisis in his past, while I’m just naturally scrawny.
He doesn’t seem now to have any particularly severe dietary restrictions and he does drink socially. But I do know he, like me, is diabetic, although I don’t know if that predated the pancreatitis. Diabetes is an irritant, not a death sentence, in the modern world. Carb-light eating is a PITA, but a doable PITA, at least for most folks.
So not a huge amount of info for you and BF, but one successful data point.
I know it’s not exactly what you’re asking about, but I once had an episode of bad pancreatic pain.
I had taken codeine after skin surgery, and woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain in my upper abdomen. It took up the entire upper third of my body, including feeling like it was between my shoulder blades. I had to go to the ER, where I was given morphine and underwent a lot of tests to rule out any heart problems. They couldn’t discover why I had such pain.
It eventually went away, and I went home. I did a lot of research afterwards and discovered that codeine can cause spasming of the pancreatic sphincter (“Oddi valve”), which can be horrifically painful. It tends to happen especially to women in their fifties without a gall bladder (that was me). I’m pretty sure that that’s what caused this episode and now I always list codeine when telling a new doc what drugs negatively affect me.
So just dropping this in to confirm that pancreatic pain is godawful and I have empathy for your boyfriend and hope that he can stop drinking.
His case sounds very promising simply because it has an exact known cause and a solution that can be easily implemented. Your support could very well be the difference between his success or failure, and God bless you for sticking with him!
Of course the basic advice is to avoid alcohol and minimize fatty foods, and possibly take digestive enzymes. But I don’t have personal experience with how well this works.
While I agree it’s certainly good to have clear cut cause and effect, I find the use of “easy” as an adjective about recovering from alcoholism to be a bit … optimistic.
I wish them both well, but “easy” is not a word I’d use to describe the road ahead.
You’re right, of course. “Easy” in my mind meant a clear cut methodology that doesn’t involve health insurance and doesn’t even cost a dime. I was thinking in terms of logistics and not in terms of emotional misery. That can be worse, I’m sure.
I know what you meant! Maybe not “easy” but “simple” (and definitely “simple” in quotes). I’m hoping that hearing it from enough doctors and nurses over the past few days will drive the point home for him.
I’ve not once told him this is all his fault, cuz now is not the time. But I have definitely told him that the cure is in his hands, and his hands only.
Right now he’s kind of stuck on the fact that he has an identical twin brother who drinks just as much or more, and he’s fine (at least in the pancreas area). That must be a bummer to ponder. But it is what it is.
Happy birthday @Jasmine Thanks for the well wishes!
Yes, so very many people are dying and have no power over what is killing them. He is fortunate in that he can literally save himself if he has the willpower to do it. I wish him well!!
My spouse did not have chronic pancreatitis, he had acute pancreatitis, that is, a sudden episode of it. My spouse was not a heavy drinker, in fact, he was a teetotaler so drinking isn’t the only cause, just one of the more common ones.
That said - pancreatitis can, and often does, damage the pancreas. Enough damage and it can no longer produce sufficient insulin (in some cases, no insulin at all). Thus, diabetes.
In my spouse’s case he wound up with diabetes that could be controlled with oral medication and carefully watching his diet, although there were a few times he did receive insulin. Losing weight helped reduce the amount of medication he needed, but could not entirely eliminate that need.
He never had another attack (thank goodness, the first did enough damage!) though he sometimes worried about it because we never knew what caused his pancreatitis. If your boyfriend’s pancreatitis has a clear cause then eliminating it (stopping drinking) might reverse the problem (although any damage to the pancreas up to this point might be permanent).
For my spouse, nothing was completely off-limits for eating, but portion control played a huge part. Also, he had to learn what caused his blood sugar to spike and what didn’t, and also how to identify when his blood sugar got too low and what to do about that. So yes, he could have some sweets, but the portions had to be measured out in grams and carefully fitted into his meal plans. So, my gadget-loving spouse not only bought a blood sugar meter that could download information into our computer (keep in mind - this was before smart phones became ubiquitous) and track information over months and help generate graphs and stuff, he also bought a kitchen scale and really did measure out his daily “dose” of candy in grams, along with his other food until he felt he was in control.
Which is sort of what it takes to be a “successful” diabetic. My spouse was extremely diligent in his weight control, his diet, monitoring his health, and taking his medicine. So, as a result, he didn’t have a lot of the complications he might have otherwise had.
Until a person has diabetes I don’t think the average person really appreciates all that a fully functioning pancreas does.
Anyhow - this sort of serious medical episode is very scary. And you’re correct, the only person who can “fix” this is your boyfriend. You can be supportive, but the motivation and work has to come from him.
Good luck, I hope things turn out OK for everyone.
This. A great post there overall @Broomstick, but you hit something key with the quoted snip.
Both as to booze and as to (probable) diabetes or near-diabetes the OP’s BF has a new hobby called “Taking care of his body using his brain and his spoon, not his emotions” One hopes he takes to the new hobby. It can be fun, but it’s a different “fun” than what he’s been used to.
Thanks for the well wishes!