Help with pancreatitis and lipase levels

[Avatarman4]

Hey all, i'm 21 years old and about a month + ago I was diagnosed with pancreatitis.

I had my first attack - a really high fever with stomach pain - that had me in the hospital for about 3 days. After being discharged and going back to food, I had the same fever (no stomach pain this time around) 2 days later and that ended up with me sitting in the hospital for a month without food or water. The reason they kept me in the hospital that long was because my lipase level was sort of elevated (sat at around 200-300 and would go up and down) even though I wasn't eating anything.

I'm out of the hospital now again, and was told to get an ERCP, though i'm worried about getting it since I have read about the side effects and how it can make things worst. I'm eating a regular low fat diet now with no pain at all, but my lipase level is still elevated (232 when I left the hospital, 719 when I took the test after food for 2 days, and I haveanother one in a few days).

Do I still have pancreatitis or something worse? Even though my lipase level continues to stay elevated (the norm is 100 or so according to my doctor), I do not feel any pain at all when I eat, nor any symptoms associated with pancreatitis. The only thing wrong is my lipase level. Thanks for the help.

[Saguayo]

I have the same issue my lipase level is at 203 and my pain was starting in my upper right rib area and seems to be better. Going to have them re test me to see if it’s gone down. Just have nausea from time to time. They have not gave me anything and tested me for h pylori which was negative. Not sure what’s going on.

[CalGal]

You need to try to get to the bottom of why this is happening as soon as you can. And I'm surprised they didn't do more testing while you were in the hospital.

It's important because if you end up with severe damage to your pancreas it's going to effect you for the rest of your life, so please follow-up on any suggestions the docs gave you when you were discharged.

Find a good GI person and get any testing you have to have done. The ERCP isn't the nicest test, but with the proper precautions your chances of getting pancreatitis go down quite a bit. You need to find out whether or not something is happening at the sphincter and if it is, have it corrected.

I don't know if the docs explained to you that if your pancreas is damaged it will not only affect your ability to digest food, but it could also compromise your ability to make insulin which is necessary to be able to utilize the glucose you take in to provide energy for your whole body. People with long term damage to the pancreas can end up in severe pain and may have to have surgery that can consist of losing a portion of the pancreas along with re-routing the 'plumbing' coming out of the stomach into the duodenum. It's not a 'fun' thing to have happen.