Possible hereditary pancreatitis?
I am a 22 year old male in college. I have been underweight pretty much my whole life and have been having episodes of sharp epigastric pain since I was 11. I never went to the doctor about these episodes since they usually went away on their own and was never too severe. Recently, I went to see a dietitian at my college, who recommended that I get bloodwork done to make sure there was nothing preventing me from gaining weight. By pure coincidence, I had an episode of that mild sharp epigastric pain the day before I got my blood drawn, and they just so happened to check my lipase for one of the tests. Keep in mind, I didn’t even mention the pain since it happens so frequently for me, and i’m not even sure why they wanted to check my lipase since we didn’t even suspect anything wrong with my pancreas (not sure if checking lipase is standard for blood draws).
My lipase was 249 and the upper limit on this test was 53, which puts me at about 4.7x the upper limit, hence pancreatitis was suspected for me since its above 3x. I am aware that in acute pancreatitis the lipase is typically much higher than that, but regardless we began suspecting a problem with my pancreas. Also, the pain I experienced the day before the blood test was no different than the pain I had always experienced, which is why I am suspecting those sharp epigastric pain episodes have actually been my pancreas this whole time.
I should also mention that my grandpa had necrotizing pancreatitis and had to get multiple pancreatic surgeries because of it, but nobody else in my family has had issues with their pancreas. Also funny enough, I managed to get the same GI doctor that operated on my grandpa which is nice.
So anyway, I did a MRI + MRCP and it was completely normal. Then recently I did an EUS and the findings were: “the parenchyma of the pancreas had extensive fine echogenic strands. The main pancreatic duct was uneven in caliber, with a small segment of prominent duct in the body, lined by echogenic duct wall.”
According to google, these findings don’t necessarily indicate pancreatitis, however due to me being severely underweight (BMI 15.8) + episodes of epigastric pain since 11 + the lipase blood test, the doctor concluded that I likely have early chronic pancreatitis. The doctor also took a duodenal biopsy and I did a pancreatitis genetic test, but both tests are still pending.
I have started taking creon with all my meals, which is super annoying to do, but my poop is looking much better now (it used to be yellow and watery nearly every time, havnt seen any yellow poop since starting the creon).
So I am curious if anyone else has hereditary pancreatitis, i’m also curious if this could be anything else, as I know lipase can be elevated for reasons other than pancreatitis