What you should know about pancreatitis
The pancreas is a small organ that lives on the intestine right past the stomach. Once the stomach has ground up the food that you eat, it passes underneath the pancreas through the intestine. The pancreas sprays some enzymes onto the food as it goes by. It also secretes insulin into the bloodstream to allow yourself to absorb the sugar from what you ate.
But what we are concerned about are those enzymes that digest your food. Some pets, when they become overweight, or pets that are fed too much fat, or pets of a certain breed like Schnauzers and Poodles, can experience high levels of fat dissolved in the bloodstream. The term for this is called “persistent lipema” (hyperlipidemia).
When you pull a blood sample, you can actually see fat droplets floating in the blood. Or the blood may look whitish or gray with the fat. That’s normal for a short period of time after eating. However if it drags on, it causes problems for the pancreas because the pancreas is made up of extremely delicate, microscopic capillaries. And these capillaries do not respond well to blockages caused by fat in the blood. And when these capillaries malfunction the cells of the pancreas begin to die. The pancreas becomes inflamed and begins to leak the digestive enzymes into the pancreas itself.
In other words, the pancreas begins to die, and begins to digest itself.
So you can see that pancreatitis has its roots in too much fat in the diet. Once a diagnosis of pancreatitis has been made via bloodwork and a carefully collected history on the animal, mixing in genetic and physical predispositions, like obesity and genetics, treatment basically involves fluid therapy, pain management, and restriction of all food intake. The reason for this, is that when you eat, it calls upon your pancreas to secrete more enzymes. And those enzymes are released into the pancreas when it is sick so I will recommend that your pet go without food, for days. A minimum of 72 hours.
All you can hope is that the appetite begins to return indicating that the pancreas is actually healing. In some cases, the pancreas truly dies, starts bleeding, and rots out in the belly. That is rare, but it is fatal. If a pet survives pancreatitis and returns to normal, as you might guess, it may no longer consume any more fat. There are many ways to feed a pet that avoid fat. Ultra ultra low fat diet’s exist that are pre-manufactured, or you may cook for your dog and exclude fat while providing an even higher plane of nutrition. Without much fat in the diet, it may be important to supplement fat soluble vitamins like A D E and K.
You may have heard it said that once you’ve had pneumonia, it becomes incrementally easier to have pneumonia again. So is the case with pancreatitis. Once a pancreatitis, always a pancreatitis. And the next fatty meal the pancreatitis patient cats will send it right back to the hospital.
My favorite diet for pancreatitis patient is tofu, boiled egg, and mixed vegetables and for best results would be mixed vegetables that are low in starch, avoiding potatoes, lima beans, peas, and corn. There is no necessity for restricting calories, but restricting fat to almost 0 levels is essential to prevent recurrence of pancreatitis.
To conclude this article let me explain why pain management is so important in the manage of pancreatitis. When an animal is in pain or under considerable stress, it’s secretes an excessive amount of cortisol or adrenaline. Cortisol can make pancreatitis considerably worse. So when a pet is in pain and distressed, and cortisol levels are high, cases do more poorly. And so pain management is highly recommended if not essential. I wish more veterinarians understood the importance of pain management in pancreatitis cases.
