In order to completely understand how serious any acute pancreatitis attack actually is one must understand what happens during an acute pancreatitis attack. Now ...
I am not going to go all "medical" on you and get into all the bullshit details. You really only need to understand ONE thing and that is this:
What happens to your pancreas during an acute pancreatitis attack?
What happens to your pancreas during an acute attack of pancreatitis is this:
- Your pancreas becomes inflamed due to alcohol consumption, gallstone obstruction, high blood fats, abdominal trauma or a myriad of other reasons.
- The inflammation activates your pancreatic enzymes. Pancreatic enzymes are only suppose to activate when they reach your small intestine but inflammation can and does trigger early activation while the enzymes are still inside your pancreas.
- The enzymes eat your pancreas. Early activation from inflammation turns your pancreatic enzymes into pancreas killers. Instead of being released and activating in the small intestine and breaking down your food they are activated while still inside your pancreas and finding no food to digest they begin eating your pancreas.
Acute pancreatitis hurts like hell, makes you sicker than you've most likely ever been before and may cause you to believe you just might be on your way out. Now ...
To extremely over simplify the molecular structure of pancreatic enzymes and how they work, picture them as an ACID. So ...
If you were to spill sulfuric or hydrochloric acid on your hand how long would it take before you were aware of pain and visable damage?
Not long!
Maybe seconds!
So, how long do you think it takes for activated pancreatic enzymes to begin causing damage to your pancreas?
Again NOT LONG!
So while you are waiting for Dr. Shit4Brains, who normally can't diagnose strep throat with any degree of certainty without doing a throat culture, to discover the problem you are having which turns out to be acute pancreatitis what do you think is happening to your pancreas?
Did you say: "Geewhiz dude it is being damaged?"
Correctomundo keemosabi!
Your pancreas is sustaining more damage every minute that Dr. Shit4Brains searches for some off-the-wall imbecilic diagnosis when all symptoms point to acute pancreatitis. I mean hey ...
Your first time at the ER may look something like this:
You come in sicker than a dog and the brilliant reception desk person gives you a silly form to fill out, then you wait, in pain, maybe puking. Then ...
You are shuffled into some dumbass nurse's office who wants to play 20 questions while you are doubled over in pain and puking. Finally when he or she thinks you need to be admited to the ER you get to wait in a room for Dr. Shit4Brains.
When Dr. Shit4Brains comes in smiling (he's tickled cuz the cute nurse in rooms 112 just smiled at him and said he was "lookin' fine today") he introduces himself and instead of looking at your sheet he needs to check out your life history by asking questions (the answers to which he doesn't really hear cuz he's still thinking about NurseHot4Action). then ...
He wipes off his shoes and asks you to lie on the bed (you can't even sit still cuz of pain but he wants you to lie down which normally makes the pain even worse) and begins to poke and prod asking the dumbass question "does this hurt?" When he's done poking and prodding you immediately scoot back up onto the edge of the bed and lean forward to help ease the pain, which is a losing battle. Then ...
More questions from Dr. Shit4Brains (he doesn't pick up on the clue - you aren't able to keep lying down and instead lean forward to help ease the pain and he completely misses the part about the pain stabbing into your back) and he maybe orders a blood draw for a CBC series. Then ...
He leaves for awhile to check out Nurse Hot4Action and wait for the blood draw results. The blood draw results come back fairly normal with slightly elevated white blood cells and liver enzymes but nothing else and ...
Since he doesn't have the faintest clue as to what's wrong with you (he partied and slept through med school and paid his brainac dorm roomate to do his work and take his exams) he never does check your amylase or lipase levels which would most likely indicate pancreatitis. But ...
Ah ha! He gets it! You are a druggie in "withdrawls" looking for a fix!
For one short moment he was considering some pain and nausea medication to help relieve your discomfort (gross understatement) while he consulted with 10 of his collegues (because he doesn't have a clue what is wrong with you) but ...
Nope!
You said you weren't an alcoholic so you must be a drug user! And ...
Since it is almost time for him and NurseHot4Action to end their shift he does what?
The dumb bastard conjures up a cool story about "gastritis" and the possibility you ate something bad and the moron releases you with directions to come back if the situation doesn't improve. Now ...
What exactly is happening to your pancreas while this moron, Dr. Shit4Brains, diagnosises you incorrectly and fiddle-fucks around with NurseHot4Action?
It is being destroyed by its own enzymes!
You go home, in agony, and wait for your pancreas to quit eating itself while Dr. Shit4Brains gets laid! And ...
Since you are sicker than a dog you instinctively don't eat and you are extremely lucky and the acute pancreatits finally resolves on its own but ...
The DAMAGE is done!
What exactly does this mean to you?
It means that within a short time you will most likely experience another acute pancreatitis attack, sustain more pancreas damage, that will most likely lead to chronic pancreatitis, but hopefully the second time you experience an acute pancreatitis attack you'll get someone, other than Dr. Shit4Brains, who didn't sleep through med school for an attending ER physcian and he or she will diagnose you correctly.
I hope for your sake that you do not experience a severe form of acute pancreatitis the second time, that you did get diagnosed in time to hopefully prevent disabiling surgeries and damage, in fact I hope you got diagnosed correctly the first time and the AP was quickly resolved and you are pretty much ok.
It took me seven (7) ER visits and 14 doctors to get a proper diagnosis.
13 dumb bastards and one very intelligent, good doctor.
I hope your experience is much better, hell, I hope you never experience pancreatitis EVER! But ...
Chances are if you are reading this post you have been inducted into the pancreatitis hall of pain and for that I am truly sorry and I sincerely hope you are able to achieve becoming pain free so that you live a fairly normal life. But ...
What I have tried to explain (maybe without success) is that the sooner you address the inflammation and STOP the acute pancreatitis attack, the less damage you will sustain. Unfortunately you will sustain damage no matter what happens. Any acute attack of pancreatitis is going to cause damaged tissue. Hopefully you will not be one of those who are really unlucky.
Like I said earlier ...
If you are reading this post chances are you have pancreatitis and since that is the case your primary concern should be to prevent another acute pancreatitis attack from happening again. In a previous post called: 5 Pancreatitis Remedies I Use you can find the diet and supplements I use myself to keep my pancreas as happy as possible and avoid more damage.
In summary: When you have an acute pancreatitis attack the most important stratetgy is to STOP the acute pancreatitis attack as quickly as possible by reducing or stopping the pancreas inflammation.
I would suggest if this is your first visit to my blog that you invest all the time you need to learn how to live with pancreatitis, more importantly, learn to over come pancreatitis and keep from incurring more pancreas damage.
I hope you have a pain free day!
