Pancreatic Divisum and Chronic Pancreatitis

I am a 33 year old female and was perfectly healthy with never being sick other than something as minor as a cold or maybe the flu once or twice until 2 months after giving birth to my 3rd son 4 years ago. I woke up one night and began to nurse my baby when all of a sudden I had a sharp pain in my upper abdomen that was so intense I felt as if I would pass out. I put the baby down in fear of dropping him and crawled to the bathtub and started a bath (when I am in pain I take a bath???) Not five minutes later I could not bear the pain any longer and called for my husband to help. He woke up and came to help. He had to pick me up to get me out of the tub. He rushed me to the hospital ER. After a long night in the ER it was determined that I had gall stones (and not a diseased gall bladder) and was taken into surgery that day to have my gall bladder removed. The surgery was done laparoscopically and there were no problems. I thought that was the end of it. Then 3 months later I had a migraine so severe that I had to go back to the ER. I was treated with pain meds and sent home. Around 12 hours later the migraine had gotten considerably worse and I was vomiting so I returned to the ER. They did blood tests and saw that my lipase levels were near 2000 with the normal being 40. Though they didn't know the cause they admitted for 5 days treating the pain and giving me IV fluids until my lipase level began to reach a normal range. After that I began seeing a gastroenterologist. He said there was nothing wrong, it was an unexplained spike in my lipase level and to come back in 3 months to have my levels checked again. Then every few weeks I would have severe abdominal pain with vomiting. I visited the ER several times and was admitted some times and some times sent home depending on my lipase levels. I lived in South Carolina where health care is not necessarily the greatest. I saw several doctors during those 2 1/2 years with no explanation of the pain in elevated lipase levels. They began to treat me as if I was a burden and continued to tell me there was nothing wrong. I felt like they saw me as a drug seeker and they were not helping so I stopped trying to get answers because I could not stand the way the doctors made me feel.

In 2010 we moved to Pittsburgh, PA and the painful episodes continued. After living here for about 2 months I was struggling with the pain one evening and my husband did some research on health care here. UPMC hospitals here in Pittsburgh are rated 11th overall in the nation and 13th in gastroenterology. He suggested we try a visit to the ER here to see if they could try to find out what the problem was. My lipase levels were elevated to around 400 and they admitted me. I had a CT scan and during my stay was told that it appeared I might have pancreatic divisum. I was referred to one of THE BEST liver specialists, with not so good people skills. He confirmed that I do have pancreatic divisum and wanted to do an ERCP. He performed sphincterotomy and placed a stint in my pancreas. I was hospitalized for 11 days following the procedure because I developed pancreatitis. I felt fine for nearly 8 months then painful episodes began again. The procedure was repeated then 4 weeks later again to remove the second stint, but this time with no relief.

Now I frequently have severe pain and try to treat with advil and liquid diet. If the pain is unbearable I will go to the ER and go through the routine treatment of pancreatitis. Some doctors completely understand the condition and are sympathetic to how painful it is. Others make me feel, again like I am only there to get pain meds. My liver specialist is very good, but offers me little solution to how to treat an episode and he is usually booked 6 months out so it does not do any good for me to try and get an appointment when I am in pain. I absolutely HATE going to the ER and am at my wits end. The frequency and intensity of the attacks are getting worse. I have tried to see a different gastroenterologist that is maybe more accessible, but because I am a patient of my current doctor and he is a part of UPMC they will not make me an appointment with a different one. I guess what I am asking is if there is anyone else that has a similar situation what you do for relief. I am missing out on so much because my activities with my children are limited when I am in pain for weeks at a time. My kids are so used to this that my 4 year old asks me on a daily basis how my belly feels.