Pancreatitis in children

The body of a child is much more active than that of an adult, which means that it reacts much more sharply to exter­nal influ­ences of var­i­ous kinds. In this regard, all aller­gic and infec­tious dis­eases will cer­tain­ly affect the work of the pan­creas. An unbal­anced, unhealthy diet also under­mines the health of chil­dren, because almost every child sim­ply loves car­bon­at­ed drinks, smoked foods, chips and fast food. Unlike adults in chil­dren, such food stim­u­lates exces­sive secre­tion of gas­tric juice, which neg­a­tive­ly affects the pan­creas and often caus­es chron­ic pan­cre­ati­tis.

Pan­cre­ati­tis and its types

Pan­cre­ati­tis is an inflam­ma­to­ry dis­ease of the pan­creas that affects both adults and chil­dren. The cause of the dis­ease, in addi­tion to aller­gic reac­tions, infec­tions and mal­nu­tri­tion, may be some drugs pre­scribed by a pedi­a­tri­cian. For exam­ple, strong antibi­otics used by chil­dren may well be the cause of the devel­op­ment of reac­tive drug-induced pan­cre­ati­tis.

Doc­tors dis­tin­guish three main types of pan­cre­ati­tis:

Reac­tive pan­cre­ati­tis

It occurs quite often in chil­dren — in a young organ­ism, almost all infec­tious process­es give a com­pli­ca­tion to the pan­creas, which, more­over, dur­ing peri­ods of ill­ness is sub­ject­ed to a load from drugs and antibi­otics.

Chron­ic pan­cre­ati­tis

It is much less com­mon in child­hood. As a rule, it is caused by mal­nu­tri­tion, as a result of which the nor­mal tis­sue of the pan­creas is replaced by inac­tive tis­sue. In chron­ic pan­cre­ati­tis, com­pli­ca­tions are pos­si­ble, dur­ing which the pan­creas becomes inflamed, which caus­es severe pain.

Acute pan­cre­ati­tis

It is rare in chil­dren. It is usu­al­ly the result of swelling of the pan­creas caused by a severe aller­gic reac­tion to some exter­nal aller­gen or med­ica­tion. With improp­er treat­ment, com­pli­ca­tions can occur, up to puru­lent-necrot­ic pan­cre­ati­tis.

Symp­toms

Most often, if you do not take into account exac­er­ba­tions, pan­cre­ati­tis in chil­dren is prac­ti­cal­ly not man­i­fest­ed in any way. How­ev­er, some symp­toms are still worth pay­ing atten­tion to, while it must be remem­bered that the younger the child, the less notice­able are the symp­toms of pan­cre­ati­tis. Among the main symp­toms are:

• Pain in the abdomen — the child com­plains of pain in the abdomen, which par­tial­ly radi­ates to the back. Typ­i­cal­ly, such pain can occur when a diet is vio­lat­ed or after a fall dur­ing a game.
• Decreased appetite, nau­sea, vom­it­ing, and diar­rhea are most often seen indi­vid­u­al­ly, but in rare cas­es, all symp­toms may appear at once.
• Dry mouth, the appear­ance of a white coat­ing on the tongue and an aller­gic rash on the skin.
• Fatigue, tear­ful­ness, drowsi­ness — a change in the child’s mood can also be asso­ci­at­ed with pan­cre­at­ic prob­lems and can serve as the first sig­nal for fur­ther obser­va­tions.

If a child devel­ops abdom­i­nal pain or sev­er­al of the above symp­toms, you should imme­di­ate­ly con­tact a pedi­a­tri­cian and under­go an exam­i­na­tion.

Diag­no­sis

Exam­i­na­tion and diag­no­sis includes two manda­to­ry pro­ce­dures:

1. bio­chem­i­cal blood test — allows you to detect an increase in the lev­el of diges­tive enzymes;
2. Ultra­sound of the abdom­i­nal cav­i­ty — allows you to deter­mine the degree of enlarge­ment of the pan­creas and iden­ti­fy the size of the ede­ma.

Treat­ment

When the diag­no­sis of “pan­cre­ati­tis” is con­firmed, the child is imme­di­ate­ly hos­pi­tal­ized, how­ev­er, the treat­ment itself is car­ried out with­out sur­gi­cal inter­ven­tion. Typ­i­cal­ly, chil­dren with pan­cre­ati­tis are treat­ed with spe­cial diets and top­i­cal man­age­ment of symp­toms such as vom­it­ing, pain, rash, etc.

Pre­ven­tion

Pre­ven­tion of pan­cre­ati­tis con­sists in observ­ing the dai­ly rou­tine and prop­er, bal­anced nutri­tion of the child. It is also worth try­ing to avoid acute infec­tious dis­eases, and in case of ill­ness, cor­rect­ly apply the med­i­cines pre­scribed by the doc­tor.

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