How I travel with a difficult pancreas: enzymes, food and flights
Enzymes, food, flights and no ruined trip. How I travel with a difficult pancreas without gambling on airport food or a missed dose.
Journal
Honest notes from life with a damaged pancreas. Two hospitalizations, the food fear, the wins and the mistakes. Patient experience, not medical advice.
Will my pancreatitis turn chronic?
One attack, six attacks, or chronic from the start. What the studies say about who moves from acute to chronic pancreatitis, and which risks you can change.
Parties, buffets and other people’s kitchens: eating out with pancreatitis
A hall with 100 meters of food and almost nothing I can eat. What I do before a party, what I ask the cook, and what I take at a buffet.
Eating Mediterranean on a fat budget
A Mediterranean-style diet is linked to lower chronic pancreatitis risk, but it is high in oil. How to borrow the good parts without blowing your fat budget or undereating.
Smoking and pancreatitis: the risk multiplier that gets ignored
Alcohol gets the blame, but smoking independently worsens pancreatitis, speeds the damage, and raises cancer risk. An honest, no-shame look, including the good news about quitting.
A fish in a zen garden: what PancreasZen means
Your pancreas is shaped a bit like a fish. In a zen garden, a stone can stand for a carp in still water. That is the picture behind the name PancreasZen.
Putting weight back on after pancreatitis without triggering a flare
Losing weight after pancreatitis is easy. Putting it back safely, without triggering a flare, is the hard part. Here is how I did it slowly.
The question every pancreatitis patient gets, drinker or not
Say pancreatitis and you can watch people do the math on your face. The built-in accusation, and how the shame ends up costing you medically.
MRI, CT, ultrasound, EUS: what each pancreatitis scan actually sees
Ultrasound, CT, MRI and endoscopic ultrasound answer different questions. Which one you get, when, and why an early CT can look calmer than you feel.