newly diagnosed as 'at risk'...

[mikeyB]

Mike, is Creon the same sort of thing as the Questran I have to take following problems from gall bladder surgery and is it possible that my pancreas was damaged during said op?

It’s similar in the sense that neither are absorbed by the body, and just work in the gut.

Questran absorbs excess bile acid from the liver that happens after gall bladder removal, and prevents that bile acid from being absorbed by the gut, which would turn you a not very fetching shade of yellow.

Creon replaces the enzymes that digest food, particularly fats, but also starches. The consequence of not absorbing fat you know - fatty bowel motions that are tricky to flush, and bowel urgency. Amazingly, this phenomenon is exploited in that XLS Medical weight loss system, which blocks absorption of fat. Steatorrhea is such an uncomfortable symptom that it seems madness to induce it in the name of weight loss, particularly because it will deplete fat soluble vitamins.

Finally, gall bladder surgery can’t damage the pancreas. Gall bladder surgery is common. Pancreas problems are rare, and happen just as often in folk who still have everything they were born with. Gallstones themselves can cause problems in the pancreas by the odd one blocking the shared Sphincter of Oddi, causing back pressure, but that usually causes acute pancreatitis, which by all accounts is more painful than childbirth. With a 25% death rate.

Sorry, Jackie, not enough laughs in this post. I’ll try harder next time🙂

 

[JMyrtle]

No worry Mike if we didn't laugh!!!!!
I had all the symptoms of not being able to absorb fats with all the urgency symptoms you mentioned, not much fun.
In the end my old GP who has since retired referred me to a specialist who put me on Questran to see if it would help which it has, cleared up the problem almost immediately but I never had jaundice except once when I had the gall stones
GP said I probably had an intolerance to bile salts in my gut made worse because I no longer had a gall bladder to control them.
Can you see why I was and am confused!

 

[aitcharr]

@mikeyB @Robin @eggyg @Northerner @Ditto @trophywench I just wanted to say thank you to you all. I just came back from seeing my GP regarding the HbA1c result and, had you not taken the time and care to respond to my initial message, I'm pretty sure I would have been just been told to eat a few less spuds and sent on the Diabetes Awareness course (not that there's anything wrong with that, though just not for me at this time) However, because of you, I felt quite empowered by the information and from a lot of reading of other threads on the forum and was able to have a really positive conversation with him about my diet changes/exercise plans etc. We talked about the difference between the diagnosis & treatment of Type 3c & T2 & of pancreatogenic diabetes (he freely admitted to never having heard of T3c and said 'I'll have to look that one up'!) He's agreed to let me tackle this in my own way and I'm going back in 4 months for another HbA1c test to see whether diet/exercise can shift the numbers back in the other direction,
At least I feel that if I do get thrown the curve ball at some time in the future, then at least you've given me some kind of a bat to hit it with! I'm very grateful to all of you.

 

[eggyg]

That’s great, glad it was a positive appointment, GPs are pretty hopeless at anything about diabetes never mind Type 3c. I had a docs appointment just before Christmas as I was concerned about a big toe, I explained that as I was diabetic I thought I had better get it checked out. She asked what type I was, when I replied Type 3c she said “ remind me what that is again”. So not quite admitting she didn’t know but obviously she didn’t! Hopefully we have educated at least two GPs in recent weeks! Good luck.

 

[PeteS]

@Robin @pottersusan has had a total pancreatectomy not Whipple. Not sure if we have any Whipples here, @Northerner do you know?

Had a whipples in 1985 & completion (total) pancreatectomy in 2003.