What is Pancreatitis?

You have a stomachache, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. You might chalk it up to the tacos you ate as well as the chili dog, or things might be worse. Much worse. In order to determine what you have, why not do what hypochondriacs do? Find out as much as you can about anything that includes abdominal pain, like pancreatitis. While you probably don’t have this condition, it never hurts to obsess a bit.

Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas that can cause troubles in the rest of the body, if not taken care of immediately.

Signs of Pancreatitis

When your stomach is hurting, you might want to think about what other symptoms you have in order to properly diagnose your condition. Most of the time, it’s probably just a bad taco, but when you begin to notice your symptoms don't get better, call your doctor or head to the local emergency room for help.

• Severe upper abdominal pain, radiating to the back
• Nausea
• Vomiting (emesis)
• Internal bleeding
• Elevated blood pressure
• Abdominal tenderness

You will have blood tests run as well as a physical exam to see what the cause your discomfort might be. And the good news is that you will also get pain pills, or pain medication in an IV.

Causes of Acute Pancreatitis

But why does pancreatitis happen to people? Often, it’s a complication of another illness, but in some cases, it happens without any cause. How luck would you feel if you were that case?

• Gallstones
• Alcohol
• Steroids
• Ulcers
• Mumps
• Trauma
• Hypothermia
• Autoimmune discovers
• Hypercalcaemia
• Scorpion sting
• Hypertriglyceridaemia
• ERCP
• Drugs

Even if you don’t fall into the common categories of gallstones or alcohol, most doctors can easily diagnose this condition before it gets any worse.

Pancreatitis Treatments

The treatments for pancreatitis are easy enough on the body, but they need to be administered quickly.

• Provision of pain relief
• Limitation of oral intake
• Dietary fat restriction

Basically, all people need to do is to make sure that you get the pancreas to become less inflamed, which will take time. Often, people will need to stay in the hospital until the pancreas function improves. Or until their health insurance kicks them out.

Pancreatitis is something to worry about if you have a history of gallstones or ulcers, but once you’re in the hospital, you’ll probably be fine. And with the great pain medications, you probably won’t care.