I had gall bladder type pain that resulted in imaging that found cysts in the pancreas and sludge in the gall bladder. This prompted an ERCP by the local Gastro surgeon. This set off a wickedly severe pancreatitis (lipase levels beyond hospital scale) and 2 week NPO hospitalization. This was Nov 2014, and now 3 months down the line.
I've learned much - most important - do not let *anyone* touch your pancreas or do a procedure unless you are at a nationally recognized center for pancreatic care. An ERCP by a generic Gastro, who will cite a 5% complication rate, will almost always cause problems. There is research that says pancreatic procedures like an ERCP by a non-pancreatic center can have complication rates at 40-60%. My severe bout was directly produced by the ERCP -- it took about 8 hours to develop.
Secondly - pancreatitis quickly overwhelms the ability of your GP or Gastro to understand or effectively manage. Work your insurance system or pay out of pocket to get in with a true expert in pancreatic care. It is a critical, lifestyle disease with nasty consequences if you don't follow best practices of care and lifestyle adjustments.
My recovery has been rigid adherence to the low-fat, low sugar diet. I need to adhere to both to keep pain at bay. My problems come when I eat out or otherwise fail to comply with both low fat and low raw sugar. I've also had to add complex starches (rice, potatoes) to provide energy. Lastly, I've learned to poach/drain or steam white fish or skinless chicken to convert lean meats to low fat. You can buy some products where that is already done. Like many - I've become a rabid reader of labels. I've pretty much moved to not eating things that don't have labels (i.e., no eating out unless it is salad with no dressing).
With the above approach, I've been blessed with low grade pain and sometimes a painfree day. It does seem, ever so slowly, to be getting better. The UCLA specialist said that 6-12 months, sometimes longer, can be anticipated for healing. And that is if I don't irritate it in that process. So it is a very long road.
One surgeon gave me an excellent nugget on their focus to find cause: surgeons are trained to find and fix. They need to discover a thing or a reason that causes the issue, and then they go in and fix it. So, idiopathic pancreatitis breaks their rules, and their training drives them to ascribe a cause. They go to alcohol due to the problem drinkers' proven propensity to not be fully truthful. But - as he said - it actually doesn't matter at this point. The treatment is going to be the same: low fat, low sugar, no alcohol, followup scans and bloodwork mostly to monitor for any conversion to a situation where surgery is required or cancer is detected. If the patient continues to drink, that will eventually play out -- but if you are the patient, stop drinking. If that proves hard, seek help for that as well! I love my glass of wine or a pint on weekends, but it has needed to stop. It makes me sad, but I'd rather be painfree.
The only thing about this disease that I can control is aggressive adherence to the diet, really good hydration (it helps!), and digging until I find an actual specialist with a clue *and* who works with me effectively. I actually travel about 5 hours to that person now that I have found them........which is really hard, but I want to invest in a life worth living for another 40 years (I am 50).
I did not really anticipate a sudden shift, out of the blue, to managing a serious disease. It has taken me a few months to realize that this isn't like a bad cold I will get over - this is likely going to need attention and care for a very long time, and if I am not aggressive up front, for life. So - while we all have to work to support ourselves, I do really assertively work to make all the little choices in my day (diet, stress, hydration) be really good ones for my health. And - when I shift my timeframe to the long haul for recovery, it helps!
Best of luck in your journey - and I am glad to have discovered this board.
Terri