Pain in chronic pancreatitis is considered one of the main symptoms. It is the pain that causes the disability of people with chronic pancreatitis. The manifestation of severe pain leads to the need to treat the patient in inpatient or outpatient settings. Qualitative help in the manifestation of pain in people suffering from chronic pancreatitis has its difficulties due to the lack of accurate data on the effectiveness of different treatment methods, lack of information on the pathophysiological causes of the onset of pain syndrome, its subjectivity and polymorphism.
Another complication of the treatment of pain syndrome in chronic pancreatitis is the need to introduce different specialists into the treatment of the patient, each of which has his own ideas about the mechanisms of the onset of pain and the methods of its treatment, often fundamentally different from that of other doctors.
Key mechanisms in the pancreas that lead to the onset of pain syndrome are:
- Expansion and increase in pressure in pancreatic ducts after clogging with their calculi;
- Digestive enzymes that irritate pain receptors in the pancreas;
- Biologically active substances formed in the foci of inflammation, which irritate pain receptors;
- Formation of pseudocyst and inflammatory edema of the pancreas, which lead to the extension of the glandular capsule;
- Connective tissue that grows near the foci of inflammation and leads to the contact of pain receptors and cellular metabolites.
Pains in chronic pancreatitis can often appear after overeating, alcohol intake, pancreatic injuries, biliary colic attacks, hyperparathyroid crisis.
It is noted that in patients suffering from chronic pancreatitis for more than 10 years, the pain sensation is dulled to an almost complete cessation. This is due to the dying of pain receptors and an increase in the pain threshold in those receptors that have not died out.
How and where it hurts with chronic pancreatitis?
With chronic pancreatitis it hurts in the peritoneum, in the ileum. These symptoms do not allow you to walk straight and even sit. The discomfort is so strong that the patient's appetite is gone, the stool becomes a liquid and oily consistency. Mucous in the mouth dries up, there is a feeling of thirst. There may be sudden vomiting. These symptoms are known to all people with inflamed pancreas.
In chronic inflammation of the body, pain can occur in the back, as the pancreas irradiates throughout the abdominal cavity.
If inflammation occurs in the head of the organ, it hurts in the right hypochondrium. Unpleasant symptoms can be observed under the right hypochondrium, in the groin, in the back, or across the peritoneum. Their localization is not always marked at one point. In themselves, the signs of inflammation are aching, cutting or stitching. Everything depends on what is inflamed in the pancreas. People sometimes can not bear these signs of chronic pancreatitis.
When the body is inflamed pancreas, the pain manifests itself under the spoon. With inflammation of the tail of the organ, unpleasant symptoms appear in the peritoneum and under the left hypochondrium.
The most common localization of symptoms of pancreatitis is so incomprehensible that it is difficult for a person to determine exactly where it hurts.