1. Chronic Pancreatitis Often Accompanied by Chronic Gastritis

1. Chronic Pancreatitis Often Accompanied by Chronic Gastritis

Chronic pancreatitis frequently coexists with chronic gastritis, which is a major reason why chronic pancreatitis can be misdiagnosed. Through decades of experience, I’ve found that nearly 80% of patients with chronic pancreatitis also suffer from gastric problems. Traditional Chinese Medicine attributes the flank pain and abdominal distension associated with chronic pancreatitis to liver qi stagnation; the saying in the “Jin Kui” – “When you see liver disease, you know that liver disease spreads to the spleen” – provides a theoretical basis for treating pancreatic diseases alongside gastric disorders. The specialized pancreatic treatment formula mentioned earlier, using Chai Hu Shu Gan San to treat the liver and Ban Xia Xie Xin Tang to treat the stomach, illustrates that treating both the pancreas and the stomach together can yield significant therapeutic effects. Modern medicine has not yet explored the relationship between pancreatic and gastric diseases, nor has it published any research reports on this topic.

I would like to share my personal, albeit limited, understanding of this phenomenon. Although the coexistence of pancreatic and gastric diseases is only my personal experience, it is indeed a real phenomenon—though it may take time for people to fully recognize it. Most patients with chronic pancreatitis exhibit gallstones or inflammation in the gallbladder and bile ducts; Western medicine believes that the bile duct and pancreatic duct both converge into the duodenum, and at the junction there is a powerful circular sphincter called the Oddi’s sphincter. This sphincter contracts or relaxes through nerve impulses, regulating the flow of bile and pancreatic juice into the duodenum while preventing the contents of the duodenum from flowing back into the bile duct and pancreatic duct.

Inflammation in the gallbladder and pancreas can cause inflammatory products to flow down the bile duct and pancreatic duct into the duodenum. The duodenum, stimulated by these inflammatory substances, can either develop duodenitis itself or lead to reflux of bile and pancreatic juice, ultimately resulting in reflux gastritis and esophagitis.