When someone is diagnosed with pancreatitis, it actually means that their pancreas is inflamed. The pancreas is located at the back of the stomach. It is the large gland that is next to the duodenum. It secretes pancreatic juices through the pancreatic duct. The juices are used to aid in the digestion process.
The pancreatic juice is used together with bile juice for digestion. Bile juice is secreted by the liver and is stored by the gall bladder. Hormones produced in the pancreas are glucagons and insulin. The hormones are released into the blood. The role of the hormones is to regulate the amount of glucose that the body absorbs from food.
In a normal scenario the pancreas juice is usually inactive up to the time it gets to the small intestines. This is not the case for people suffering of pancreatitis; for them, the pancreatic juice is usually active at the point of production. This means that the pancreas is inflamed due to the digestive juices corroding it.
There are two types of pancreatitis; acute and chronic pancreatitis. Both of these diseases are very serious and can only get complicated. In worse cases, the tissue damage can be irreversible. In other cases, there are complications like infections and loss of blood. Pancreatitis can affect both men and women.
When you are suffering from acute pancreatitis, it means that you have just gotten the inflammation. In such cases, the inflammation goes away after you start taking the necessary medication. This does not mean that the condition can not get out of hand. There have been cases of acute pancreatitis that have led to very severe complications.
Most of the reported cases of acute pancreatitis are gallstones. The gallstones irritate the pancreas will they are going through the bile duct. This mostly happens to those people who abuse alcohol. There are other causes of the disease. They include infections, medication, trauma and others.
Chronic pancreatitis on the other hand is a constant condition. It does not go away with the consumption of any medicine. The disease only gets worse with time and eventually it completely damages your pancreas. This disease mostly affects people who are in their thirties and forties.
Chronic pancreatitis is mostly as a result of prolonged alcohol consumption. The condition can actually be a result of acute pancreatitis that damaged the pancreas duct. When the duct is not functioning very effectively, it can lead to the inflammation of the pancreas. In the course of the destruction, there is formation of scar tissue.
There are times when pancreatitis can affect people who are younger than thirty years. This is mostly in the hereditary cases. The problem with such cases is that it takes a while for a proper diagnosis to be made. The patient will suffer from recurrent episodes of abdominal pain and bouts of diarrhea that last for a few days. The diagnosis is made faster only if the patient has two or more family members suffering from the same condition in the same generation.
