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Hi Shelly Nice to hear from you. Because of my gastroparesis I can’t eat all the fresh fruits & vegetables that I should eat since it can cause wicked diarrhea and or constipation. I had a heart attack in 2009, have an aortic arch aneurysm of 4 c.m. CAD high blood pressure ( controlled by meds. & high cholesterol ( controlled by meds & by diet ( ha ha!) I have a specialist for problems from my head to my toes. No one mentions age but I’m almost 79. I retired at 71 & have been sick since then.
My EPI - About 8 mos. I started with liquid diarrhea & was losing weight. Could it be Miralax - lower the dose - continued poop looked greasy- told my GI ( whom I love ). He did the testing and I was diagnosed with severe EPI & put on Creon ( which is 3 pancreatic enzymes. My pancreas doesn’t produce them, especially with fats & protein. If unchecked it can cause malnutrition. It’s quite expensive ( no generic )- $80/ 15 days. He gave me the samples he had. The med comes in like 5 different doses and the higher the dose the more expensive!! Problem is that it screws with my gastroparesis.
I couldn’t figure out why my pancreas is damaged since I never drank any type of wine, beer or alcohol. Both of our parents & grandparents were alcoholics. I googled pancreas damage and found it can be caused by many childhood diseases, meds. & Epstein Barr ( can cause mono- which I never had). Every winter I would have s&s of mono - swollen lymph nodes & fever + no mono but very high Epstein Barr.
The older We get the more things we learn that we wished we had known many years ago
Hope I didn’t bore you with all this info. Wei get back to you on the other thing which you asked me about.
Shaylyn4
Replies to "Hi Shelly Nice to hear from you. Because of my gastroparesis I can’t eat all the..."
Shaylyn4,
Another member, Creondave brought up pancreas, GI issues and taking Creon. I am going to start a new discussion about it, cuz I'm getting confused with this longggggg thread.
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I'm curious, as I am on Creon, and the pancreas expert told me that my pancreas looked fine (I had a ton of various exams on it). However, it simply isn't functioning, as if it stopped making enzymes, and there is no visual damage from anything such as drinking wine . I did drink several glasses a day in the Covid lock down, but am a non-smoker, and am not a heavy drinker relate to my French and Italian co-workers, an I stopped drinking immediately when told to do so. I also do not smoke. Perhaps the doctor didn't mention the visual quality of the pancreas...but he told me he had seen 70 year old alcoholics that had a pancreas that functioned better than mine, and that their pancreas had significant visual damage from drinking. It's so odd to hear that their pancreas works better than mine.
As far as the Creon goes, it does help with the diarrhea, but often results in constipation and the issues associated with that.