What is Pancreatitis?

Pancreatitis is health condition that causes inflammation of the pancreas. In easier terms, separate the suffix -itis from the root word “pancreas”. The suffix -itis refers to “inflammation of” attach it to the root word and you get inflammation of the pancreas. There are two types of pancreatitis: acute pancreatitis (short term) and chronic pancreatitis (long term).

Common Symptoms Associated with Pancreatitis

Symptoms are a sign that something is off internally within one of these systems: Inflammation, Gut Dysbiosis or Gut Imbalance, Impaired Detoxification, Hormonal Imbalance, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Circadian Rhythm Disturbances, Oxidative Stress, Neuro-disruption, or Immune dysregulation. Symptoms are essentially your body crying out for help in the only way that they know how to communicate. Symptoms associated with pancreatitis include:

• Abdominal pain
• Abdominal distention
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Weight loss
• Steatorrhea
• Gas

Labs

You may order a GI-MAP stool test to further assess gut health imbalances or an OAT test to assess nutrient deficiencies that may result from malabsorption of nutrients resulting from pancreatitis.

My storefront is linked here to order functional labs, which is signed off by a nationally-licensed physician, to assess for gut health issues, hormonal imbalances, or vitamin/mineral deficiencies. If you need help creating a personalized functional nutrition care plan based on the interpretation of any of the above functional labs, you can work with us here.

Functional lab testing would be a good idea if you really wanted to hone in on the specifics of gut microbiome imbalances, hormonal imbalances, vitamin/mineral deficiencies.

Therapeutic Diets To Heal Pancreatitis

There is a difference in therapeutic diets used to heal acute and chronic pancreatitis. A diet that aims to first manage symptoms, reduce inflammation of the pancreas, and support blood sugar regulation. If needed, we can also focus on healing and repairing the gut, slowly re-introducing new foods, identifying any trigger foods, and then work to rebalance the gut using the 5R Treatment Protocol linked here.

Looking at it from the STAIN framework — Stress, Toxins, Adverse Food Reactions, Infections, and Nutritional Imbalances — we aim to identify the root causes and design a personalized nutrition care plan based on your unique biochemical individuality. Biochemical individuality is the concept that each of us has a different nutrition blueprint to achieve optimal wellness. We each have our own, unique genetic expression and that is shown in a personalized nutrition care plan made just for you.

Tip: Keep a food journal so that pre and post meals you can become more in tune with your body and see how certain meals make you feel. Continuously check in with yourself to see how you are feeling, this is the type of subjective information that only you can know for yourself and make sure to share this information with the dietitian that you are working with!

Ask yourself: How do I feel after eating this specific meal? *insert symptom here* It’s helpful to have a dietitian that is able to look at your food journals so that they can decipher what specific ingredient or a combination of ingredients that may be causing these symptoms. Having a food journal is also helpful to look for any potential food reactions that may be related to pancreatitis.

Caution: Restrictive eating due to symptoms associated with pancreatitis may lead to an eating disorder. It is important to not be constantly under eating, resulting in less food and nutrients in the body, just because it results in less symptoms! It is still possible to eat high quality and nutrient dense meals with your favorite ingredients.

Supplements, Probiotic Strains, & Medicinal Herbs

Discuss supplements with your dietitian to determine which will be the best fit for you. Always consult your healthcare provider prior to beginning a new supplement. 

There are many supplements, botanicals, and herbs that can be used to help support healing of pancreatitis. Remember supplements are there to “supplement” or to help the main treatment which is using a food as medicine approach to healing. Some general helpful supplements for pancreatitis are:

• DGL
• Vitamin D3 + K2

Make sure to order from a high quality and third party tested brand instead of purchasing from Amazon where practically anyone can sell anything without any rigorous testing. To make it easier for you, you may order from my supplement dispensary below through Fullscript’s catalog where each brand and product meets strict top quality standards. You can learn more about third party testing here.

My supplement dispensary is linked here and you do not need to be a client to place an order.

Nutrition & Lifestyle Tips

Look at sleep, diet, exercise, and stress management.

Here are some helpful tips for you to begin the process of healing pancreatitis:

• Chew your food mindfully and thoroughly
• Limit intake of ultra-processed foods and foods with refined sugars
• Have a stress management routine! (traditional yoga, yoga nidra, breathwork)
• For bloating, you can use herbal teas such as teas with fennel, licorice, chamomile, and peppermint.
• Having a routine that includes any form of daily movement: walking for 30 minutes daily has been shown to improve symptoms and systemic inflammation.
• Yoga helps to reduce anxiety and stress resulting in improved symptoms.
• Using a bidet

Gentle reminder: Don’t stress yourself with an all or nothing mentality where you feel like you have to implement everything on this list all at once. Sometimes in order to reach the end goal, you need to take baby steps at first and build these habits bit by bit.

Referrals