Feel This

- hello, and welcome to anotheredition of feel this pain. i'm ken mckim. and in tonight's episode,we're going to be talking about something known as chronic pancreatitis. so what is it? well, it's when yourpancreas becomes inflamed, making it harder for you to digest food and regulate your blood sugar levels. so, let's take a look at itby the numbers, shall we?

in 2009, there were almost20,000 hospital admissions for chronic pancreatitisat a cost of $172 million. that's not chump change. men are one and a halftimes more likely than women to have chronic pancreatitis. now, your pancreas really has two jobs. it produces enzymes tohelp you digest food, and it releases hormoneslike insulin and glucagon into your blood to help controlyour blood sugar levels.

so with chronic pancreatitis, something is causing thosedigestive enzymes to activate before they leave the pancreas, which means that instead of digesting food they start digesting thetissue of the pancreas, leading to inflammation. and that kind of repeated inflammation can cause permanent scarringthat can lead to things like cysts or gallstones developing.

which then mess things up even more by impeding the flow ofthose same digestive enzymes that would normally help breakdown the food that you eat. so not only do theenzymes activate too soon, but too few of them aremaking it out of the pancreas to help digest your food. and for those of you who haveseen my feel this pain video on gastroparesis, youalready know what happens when your food doesn'tget broken down properly.

you become malnourished,'cause you're unable to absorb any of thenutrients from your food. now, also remember isaid that the pancreas regulates your blood sugar levels. so yes, those same cystsand other blockages can also interfere with the production and distribution of insulin. so you could end up asa malnourished diabetic. it's crazy.

so what are some of the causes? well, the number one causethat everyone's familiar with is alcohol. alcohol abuse accountsfor up to 70% of cases. and that's unfortunate, because since it's one of thebest-known causes of this, people can be quick to assume that if you have chronic pancreatitis that you're probably an alcoholic.

and that's not always the case. there are so many things that can cause chronic pancreatitis. so what are we talking about? well, things like smoking, hypercalcemia, which is having too much calcium in your blood. it could be hereditary. you might be one of thosepeople who have a mutated gene

that causes it. autoimmune diseases like ibdand sjã¶gren's can cause it. even some medications,like statins, steroids, and some oral contraceptives. so what kind of symptomsshould you expect? well, you know, the classics. abdominal pain with nausea and vomiting. significant chronic weight loss, diarrhea, oily stools, stools that look like clay.

your skin and eyes might turn yellow, which is called jaundice. you might also develop type one diabetes, as approximately 45% of patients with chronic pancreatitis do develop it. of course we've coveredmalnutrition, and there's many more. those are just the highlights. now, as far as treatment options go, some doctors might recommend

a process known as pancreaticenzyme replacement. that helps fight malabsorptionand thus malnutrition. and it can also helptake some of the pressure off the pancreas bystarting to digest the food before it ever leaves your stomach. surgery can help some people. there's a lot of differentsurgical procedures they might recommend. one of them is called a whipple.

and the purpose of the whipple procedure is to remove inflammationon the head of the pancreas. but this operation hasits own inherent dangers, because it calls for removing a lot of the pancreatic tissue. sometimes, if you're luckyand you meet the criteria, your surgeon might perform something known as a modified whipple, which does the same thing butit sacrifices less tissue.

of course your doctor willgo over all of this with you. but surgery, as always, is surgery. it's major, major stuff. you don't mess around withit if you don't have to. as far as pain management goes, well, your pain management options pretty much depend on who you talk to. now, interestingly enough,and i thought this was great, the columbia universitydepartment of surgery

recommends medications suchas percocet and oxycodone for pain management. they go so far as to say, quote, "oral methadone is a very good medication "for managing chronic pain." and then they go on toexplain the difference between physiological andpsychological addiction. and they stress that chronicpain in chronic pancreatitis patients must be addressed,

and, quote, "the need for pain medication "does not constitute apsychological addiction." how about that? what a refreshing take on theuse of narcotic painkillers to treat people's pain. oh that's so nice to hear, that you don't automaticallybecome an addict as soon as you take a pill. now, to be fair, they also mention things

like pain pumps, implantablenerve stimulators, and even nerve blocks. now keep in mind, if yougo the nerve block route, the destroyed nerves willgrow back after a few months. so repeated nerve blocksare going to be necessary throughout your life. it's just something to consider when you're weighing all your options. so how does it feel?

well, one of my longtime viewerssummed it up pretty well. she said, "imagine thatyou have a porcupine "duct-taped into themiddle part of your stomach "and he's just constantly moving around "trying to find a way out." alternately, if you canimagine what it might be like to have a hot sword inside your gut that extends all the wayup through your spine and into your shoulders,

that's a pretty fair assessment as well. when you try to eat any amount of food, it can double you over to the point where you are just laid outon the floor or on the couch. you're not moving much. and you're not eating much, because it's that painful. with pain medication, you'll be lucky if your pain levels are at a five.

without pain medication,we're talking nines and 10s. it's serious. the bottom line is, if you know someone who suffersfrom chronic pancreatitis, please be compassionate towards them. their life is no fun. they didn't ask for thislife, but they've got it. and they're doing the best they can. and that's all the time we have this week.

i appreciate you making thetime to sit here with me. if you don't want tomiss any of my videos, i would strongly suggestthat you subscribe to my youtube channel. and while you're there, go ahead and like the video and then share it with other people. and of course, you can find me in all the usual social media places:

facebook, twitter, pinterest. i'm all around. or you could just headon over to my website at dontpunishpain.com. that's good too. and finally, if you like what i do, and you want to help memake more of these videos, i would encourage youto go to my patreon site and sign up to make asmall monthly contribution.

every dollar helps, andi would like to thank the people who have already done this. i really appreciate it. i don't take it for granted. so again, that'spatreon.com/dontpunishpain. and that's it. we're all out of time. i will sign off for this week. but until next time my friends,

you take care.

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