Where were you 11/22/63?

On Nov. 22, 1963 I was 6 years old and in the first grade. I went to Ed C. Lewis Elementary School at 13220 Bellflower Blvd. in Downey California. I only have 3 memories of going there. This is one of them. 

It was a typical Southern California school with most of the doors opening onto covered but otherwise open air corridors. The main building did have one indoor corridor going through the middle with a big door at the side leading to the playground and the other corridors. I’m sure that they didn’t usually let us little guys wander around unattended but for some reason I was by myself on my way to the office. The office was located in the indoor corridor.  I had only been there a couple of times before. I remember the way sounds echoed off the polished linoleum floor and walls painted the same green apple color all government installations were painted in those days. I could hear the biggest clock I had ever seen ticking and tocking. The secretary was situated in a kind of niche in the wall behind an island counter that was too high for me to see over. She or some adult had always been there before. Tick tock. It was kind of spooky. I peeked around the counter to see the secretary sitting at her desk crying. Other in the room beyond were crying too. I don't remember if I said anything. 

She saw me and said “The President has been killed.” 

We got the next day, maybe 2, off of school. At first the adults were interested, concerned, upset. Those black and white clips you see of the funeral procession were the only thing on TV for days. After many hours of this mom pronounced that she had had enough of the riderless horse and eternal flame. The others concurred. The next time the adults; mom, dad, grandma, grandpa and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins all watched the television spectacle in amazement and horror was during the Watts Riots a couple of years later. We had moved to Bakersfield by that time and I was closer to being a sentient being so shared in their emotions to some degree. The things on the TV and the things the adults were saying mixed much more darkly in my child’s imagination than they had when President Kennedy was shot. 

Drummer boy

When I was 7 or 8, or however old it is that you can start taking band class, my folks rented a snare drum for me to practice on. My sister sings with an acapella group. I have a cousin that is an incredible jazz singer. Except for these outliers my people are thoroughly white with all the lack of rhythm that implies. So how were the folks to know that you don’t need an actual drum till you have the basics down? In the mid sixties in public school that’s how it worked and for good reason; most kids washed out within a couple of weeks. Fortunately, like I said, they had only rented the drum with a stand that fitted nicely into it’s own suitcase. I washed out too.

I did get to keep the sticks and wedge of rubber they called a practice pad. The thing was and remains today: how the hell do you hit the thing an eighth of a beat? At some point after other attempts to understand how music works and taking classes, I did finally have an understanding of the theory at least. Up on the liney music paper the note’s tones are higher. Left to right is an amount of time. However eight eighth notes in a measure don’t add up to one. Or do they? That was a long time ago. Even when I did know how it was supposed to work, making the transition from paper to instrument just didn’t happen. It always reminds me of the scene in the movie “The Jerk” just before he finds “The music that speaks to him” when he just can’t seem to get the beat.  In my 20s I hung out with musicians. After I tried playing with them a time or two, first harmonica then tambourine, I was always designated “Roadie”. sigh.

I never lost the desire to be in sync, how musicians do, when they are playing ‘in the groove’, or however they say it. In the years I did massage for a living I often played CDs of that dreamy new age music. Sometimes I experimented with tribal rhythms or other exotic forms with remarkable results. I didn’t bore my clients with the spiritual awareness aspect of my work. I always figured that if they were open to it it would happen for them. Lilies of the field and all that. (exchange “cosmic awareness” for clothing) Often, long established clients not otherwise predisposed to it would end the session with a knowing calmness and remark “That was great”. What could be more rewarding? I miss doing that work quite allot. What with overuse injuries to wrists and elbows notwithstanding I do try to keep a hand in but the bulk of it was over 20 years ago.

I had heard about drum circles, read about them, I lived in the middle of “out there” California, but in an island of repression. I never crossed paths with the kind of hippies that did it. Over the last 20 years a strange side effect of atheists coming out of the closet is that many more people are free to chose what/how they believe. You aren’t stuck with what your parents are into. Many are choosing an experiential type of spiritual life over a belief based one. This has fostered the addition of mainstream people into the local spiritual/psychic/trippy stuff community and back out into the mainstream.

My sister, the dear sweet woman that she is, gifted me a doumbek about 15 years ago. She knew. There have been drum circles in the past that I heard about, after the fact. It wasn’t until the last year or two drum circles, or ‘community drumming’ as they call it in marketing speak, have been held several times. I was finally able to go and use the drum she gave me. It has been just what I needed to fill that need to live a communal experience of music. No sheet music is required, you do it by feel.

299 and falling.....and Yes, it is a big fucking deal.

It has taken little over a year to get my weight from 356 down to 297.

That makes it a little over a pound a week on average. Pretty much the prescription for losing weight that you want to keep off. I have been careful not to lose too fast. (not sure careful is the right way to put it. Lucky to lose it but not so fast that my body's hard wired calorie preservation mode was activated. I know people who have used long term calorie restriction and ended up having to run miles a day just to keep the weight off. That's not to say everything I have tried has worked. Most of my schemes are in earlier posts. Here's a recap:

The cookie diet was pretty much a bust. It did do the one thing I really needed it to do plus an extra. Break the ice and get me on the road to finding better plans. 

Low Carb, High Fat, medium protein (AKA Atkins) worked mostly in theory. On the one hand I did lose a few pounds and it lead me to other plans. On the other hand; Who the fuck can eat that much fat everyday? Gee-Zus. 

Gluten free via the book "Wheat Belly" Just cutting out wheat and all the easy calories in pasts, bread and most processed/fast food lost me 30 pounds. Not to mention that stopping gluten has given peace to my bowels they haven't had in decades. I'm still learning to bake gluten free but I don't crave it like I thought I might. So a loaf of bread every couple of weeks.

This lead me to learning about what is generally referred to as the "Paleo Diet". This is the idea that we evolved to eat what we could hunt or gather. Foods like grains and legumes that require cultivation and most processing are foreign (toxic) to our system and should be avoided. The people that follow this concept quickly become self righteous and even more shrill than staunch vegans. Some are also vegans. Some also shun the cooking of food all together. While a certain amount of raw food is a very good thing there is too much solid science against more than a couple of servings a day being of benefit. However many of the "Paleo diet" concepts are more than a morsel to chew on. 

As a side note the book "Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality" also bases a new look at sexuality on paleolithic humans. Many of my preconceived notions are in shambles and I am still rebuilding what little I know about such things.

The week I spent in hospital for pancreatitis changed lots of things for me. In the weeks that followed my weight did technically get to 293 or something. It quickly went back up to 318 so I don't count that as a win. Like I was saying about slow and steady. 
Got me to thinking. The cure for pancreatitis is fasting. My nutrition diva was talking about the positive effects of short fasts. I had a feeling that that was what I wanted to do. I liked what she had to say on the topic but it lacked a framework I could feel comfortable using. Then . . . 

Eat, Fast & Live Longer HD by limoslight

I ended up getting the audio book that followed up the documentary. It turns out that this too is based on a concept from the way our paleolithic ancestors lived and evolved. They only ate when food was plentiful. Other times not so much. Far from being a bad thing, times of little or no food are when the body does housekeeping. Scientific studies have boiled it down to 600 calories a day (500 for women) taken as 2 small meals. You do this 2 days a week and don't worry about what you are eating the other days. (AKA 5:2) If you do this, what you end up with is fasting for 12 hours twice on those 2 days. 

I have just completed my first 6 weeks today. I was so taken with this idea that I started another blog.* 

I knew that besides losing weight that other improvements would occur. I was as surprised as anyone that the veil of depression that has plagued me all these years has begun to fade away. More and more I am seeing stark reality and am okay with it. Clearer thinking in general and more energy.

At some point I'll go on and on endlessly about this. For now I'd like to share the 5:2 thing with other people. A little group that can share our experiences. It's easy enough to do on your own but some commiseration would be nice too. 

I want to thank you too my gentle readers. Some have offered kind words others have just followed along. I know that it isn't easy to slog through some of my ramblings. It has been a comfort that someone out there has an idea of what I'm up to. 
Thanks!

The plan is to continue as I have been. if the 5:2 fast works as it should I will keep with it forever. Why not? 
If it stops working even with adjustments I'll move on to something else.

As this is my 56th birthday I should reach sub 200 pounds by my 58th birthday if not before. If that surgery where they cut off the excess skin is required, time to figure out financing for that will be needed. 

199 here I come,

Full steam ahead!

*I didn't want the whiney personal journal tone of this blog to flavor that one. I wanted to try Tumblr too. It turned out fairly up beat. Tumblr is okay and has a couple of significant advantages but I prefer the way blogger works. I'm used to it and it offers more control of text. I have no easy way to know if anyone is reading the Tumblr. I have only 1 follower. 

Life is like . .

Life is/or some parts are, like always being on a scouting trip to find a place for an archaeological dig.

On Wednesday June 5th I posted the below indented paragraphs as a comment to a posting of my own I had made on facebook. That original posting has so far gotten over 31 comments of sympathy and some of sympathetic outrage. I’m sure that if I looked I could easily find numerous quotes about how times of distress are when you learn the most about yourself. 

Words are the tool I use to process and draw in all the disparate factors that all too often cloud my mind. Words are symbols that represent specific patterns of mental images or concepts, those in turn are an interpretation of sensory input and/or clusters or cogitations of the aforementioned images or concepts. Ironically words by their very nature are removed by 3, 4 or more steps from what they represent. When deep emotions and/or the reptilian part of the brain, that evolved before mental images or concepts, are engaged in a real life; words become theoretical at best. 

In the last day or so puzzle pieces have slipped into place. 
I deeply loved doing massage for my living. After 10 years I had to give it up. Partly because my wrists and elbows were generating a great deal of pain from overuse. I was also burned out. I went to see a counselor, an MFCC. I told her about the many ways doing the work gave me joy. The part of her advice that sticks with me is “The price of being a sensitive person is; being a sensitive person”. That was 20 years ago, I understood what she meant. I tried to tell myself that it only applied to a situation like massage where I made a conscience effort to open up empathetically with all of my senses and emotions to hundreds of people on demand. 
Come to think of it after a year of working for a local ambulance company (1977) as a non-emergency driver when I was 19 I tend to think I went away with Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I only rode with the red lights flashing once. That's where I encountered my first dead guy. My job was taking people to medical appointments. It was the personal contact with people in serious long term distress of many kinds that I was unprepared for. My parents weren't helicopter parents by any means. They owned a fast food place and spent what time they could with us. I was still what can be described as a suburban kid raised in blissful isolation from the real world. Just as so many are today. The ambulance job was my first step into the real world.

After growing up and into middle age before knowing I really am differently wired with what is simplistically labeled ADHD. After 30 years of sporadic sometimes extended lack of REM from sleep apnea. Not to mention the mind bending side effects of statins and the things I used for relief from the mental noise like weed and booze. Then there were the 5000+ massages I gave, doors open. Whatever barriers I had originally or have pretended to have in more recent years are a myth. Life experiences give me the capacity for metal toughness in the form of what might be described as street smarts. My work these days while 97% low key have 'underbelly of society' moments that keep me sharp. In the end however I am a sensitive person and need to respect myself accordingly.

I never know what to think about this kind of electronic bulletin board kind gestures. Your kind words and thoughts have been a comfort. Thank You.
I got home at around 5 or 5:30 AM and as usual was soon asleep. The last few days had been stressful. 
The back door of my house is in a very small laundry room where the dogs sleep. There's a gate to keep them in there with a doggie door to the back yard. I think I heard one of them banging against the gate but I was asleep and didn't respond. Then Lit'll is by my bedside in a panic. She's 8 lbs of Chihuahua desperate to get my attention. I went to reach down to pick her up wondering how she got into the house. I live on a busy street and am used to weird noises. I heard something weird but it was coming from the back yard. I sprung up and went to the back door to see two big dogs. I stepped over the dog gate to see them shaking Wookie around in their teeth. Most of her was under them and I could only see a leg with her long red fur. I grabbed the closest thing to hand, a broom, and burst outside. The big dogs weren't angry they were just destroying a new toy like they might any other. I run to them yelling and swinging the broom. They trotted off up the retaining wall at the back of the lot and went behind the garage. One turned back briefly as if to say "Dude what's going on? Why are you being like this?" I yelled again and he left. I turned back to Wookie, who had limped into the laundry room and collapsed onto her favorite rug. She was breathing heavily and her abdomen was all bloody. I stroked her head spoke to her gently and went to pull on some clothes. My mind was racing. What the hell time was it? 8:35. Lit'll was leaping and whimpering at my side. Is the vet open? What is her damage? Will she make it? I was still too much asleep for all of this. Strange how in a crisis your emotions are all there but stand back, out of the way. I went back to the laundry room. Wookie was dead. I nudged her. She was not breathing, her black eyes frozen. I called the SPCA where I got her but they don't open till 9:30. No clues on their web site as to disposing of dead animals. I called the County animal shelter. The lady said it's okay to bury a pet in your yard away from water. I thought 'and have those dogs come back and dig her up?' She then said the shelter would take care of it for $10. They don't open till 2 PM on Wednesdays. The back 5 yards of my back yard behind the retaining wall is a dense jungle and on a steep grade. I don't actually climb up into it often but I needed to know where they got in. Will Lit'll be safe? The fences back there look intact but perhaps low enough for a big dog to jump over. Then I saw them, still in the yard of the vacant house next door. I backed down the hill and went around to the other yard. They were gone.  One is all white and is a pit bull I think. Both about 70 lbs each, the other one is has a similar build but is a different breed, white with brown patches. I think they live around the corner on North Baker not directly behind my house but one north, I think. I saw the all white one going to an event at NX cafe that is 2 doors down from there. I still needed sleep and can't do anything with Wookie till 2. I needed to tell someone so sat at the computer and posted it on facebook. Did a search fo a picture for my profile that reflected what I felt like. So tired I laid down with Lit'll glued to my side.Tried TV but couldn't focus on it. Rolled onto my side tried to relax and got close to sleep when there's a loud knock at the door. When Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door I usually let them say what they need to say then say no thank you and close the door. Today I didn't yell or curse but vented a great deal of anxiety and slammed the door. Turns out those guys do serve a purpose after all. The events above on repeat in my head I thought if I type it all out it will let me sleep. One moral to this story that really hurts is that Lit'll survived because she is ah-scared of everything. I didn't have to see it to know what happened. The minute Lit'll saw the intruders she gave a bark as she sped like a bullet for the house digging frantically at the gate to get to me. Wookie was the sweet friendly dog that wanted to make friends with everybody. That's why a couple of weeks ago when she got out a stranger lady had no trouble picking her up and taking her home. -Not liking what this implies. Maybe I can sleep now. But the shelter place opens in 75 minutes. I'll try to sleep anyway It's not like she going anyplace.

I kept wanting to say it was all so surreal. What with the stress and sleep deprivation it sure seemed that way. I demanded of myself to accept that is was real. Surreal is a type of art. The whole rest of the day I felt stunned. I loved the little dog but ‘Christ’ she was just a dog. The pain in my heart was a real pain. 

The trip to the shelter did get surreal at the end. She was in the back hatch cargo space of my

car. After I paid the office people I was directed to pull around to the side of the facility. Over the public address system came “We have a D as in David at the side entrance”. I am not a fan of euphemisms and detest political correctness but this might have been a good spot for it. Eventually a man over 40 that looked like a dust bowl refugee that had been transported into a modern day jumpsuit found the latch and opened the car’s back hatch. He hesitated then picked up her stiff carcass by the neck and walked off with her like that. 
Here is a link to an earlier post all about how I got Wookie.
Since Wednesday anytime I am at home Lit’ll is either in physical contact with me or at least where she can see me. I love this little one too but remember why I wanted a companion for her. The hunt is on. Serendipity having her way with me again I was invited to a fundraising event for the Friends of the Kern County Animal Shelter Foundation tonight. 
Also in this week's revelations was that I really am a pacifist at heart. While the reptile part of my brain went wild with thoughts of revenge I was not really feeling it in my heart. Those stupid dogs were just stupid dogs. Their stupid owner caused me pain, the cost of a new dog and all that. I may seek him out and will investigate further how they got into my yard. (In the 12 years I have been here this is the first time anything like this has happened. When people lived next door they had dogs. A couple that were big. They never got into my yard.) Intuition tells me harmony will resume one way or another.

Update June 11th - Today Lit'll woke me up at about 6:30, she heard something. I went to the back door and they were back. They took off immediately so I followed them to the empty house next door. After taking this picture I saw them again on the street and in my backyard. Thinking that it is a good thing no small children live at that house now. I emailed this photo and a description of the events and noting the lack of collars to County animal control. Animal control sent back an email to tell me "I have entered a call for my officer to go out." I hope that means something will be done. Lit'll need a new playmate her size.

Behind 3000 River Bl.

Idiopathic Pancreatitis

I actually started this post before the post below but never did come to any conclusions about what the heck caused my acute pancreatitis and if what a was feeling after my hospital stay was chronic pancreatitis. As I quote below acute pancreatitis is the most common thing people are admitted to hospitals for yet beyond the 2 most common causes for acute flare ups (alcohol and/or gallstones) the root causes can include any of 100 or more medications or substances. Or as I suspect in my case some of those and pressure on my abdomen from using a machine at the gym. As a fallible human when I started feeling more normal and didn't find much in the way of answers I lost interest in the topic. For now at least. If you like sciencey stuff or have an interest in what happen to me continue reading. Otherwise it's kinda dry stuff. 

I had done some searches but this last painful interlude really put me into overdrive. At the bottom of this post you'll see many links to some of the places I've looked for answers.

Besides making insulin your pancreas makes all of your various digestive juices. It contains many specialized cells that make various enzymes. Pancreatitis comes in 2 basic forms acute (painful inflammation) and chronic. Each of these has variations based on what has caused the condition. What put me in the hospital was the acute form. The chronic form is more of a dysfunction that make your body unable to digest food. These two problems are really quite different so I am not sure why they don't have names that are different. Must be a Latin thing. 

As you know, if you've used the internet for more than facebook, porn and eMail, the quality of information varies from cutting edge to harmfully dreadfully inaccurate.  

Abstracts of university studies like the ones I found through the National Institutes of Health are a solid source. Each one only tells a tiny portion of the story since they are based on usually a single hypophysis. These kind of studies are constantly challenged and slight changes in the structure of the studies that follow can get very different results. This is why the version of what is true in the practice of medicine is slow to change. They need to wait for results to filter down to some consistency. This is also a problem because the process of challenges continues after standards are established. Better ideas can come and go unnoticed depending on timing and industry politics. This is one reason I will always remain a skeptic of the healthcare industry. 

Established medical organizations and institutions also have websites. These can be trusted to give a version of the accepted knowledge on many topics. This is where my information gathering began to go off the rails. Each site has it's own take on what goes on. This video has the most 'to the point' explanation of the pancreas and pancreatitis.

Even this however is not consistent with other sources that are just as credible. 

After looking at a hundred web pages or so I found that there are a number of possible causes. 


"Acute pancreatitis occurs when intracellular protective mechanisms to prevent trypsinogen activation or reduce trypsin activity are overwhelmed."

"Its etiology and pathogenesis have been intensively investigated for centuries worldwide. In 1856, Claude Bernard suggested that bile reflux into the common pancreatic duct could trigger acute pancreatitis. Several subsequent studies led to theories fuelling the debate until 1901, when Eugene Opie proposed that gallstone migration into the common bile duct is the main cause of acute pancreatitis."

" . . acute biliary pancreatitis is bile-pancreatic duct obstruction, which increases pancreatic duct pressure, bile reflux, trypsin activation and pancreatic auto-digestion."

"In 10%-40% of patients however, no cause is identified (acute idiopathic pancreatitis). Identifying a cause in these patients is important, since the recurrence rate is high."

cholelithiasis (gallstones)
prolonged alcohol use
Idiopathic acute pancreatitis (it could be a lot of things.)
Sarcoidosis 
Hypercalcemia 
hypertriglyceridemia. 
pathogenetic 
Microlithiasis (sludge)
infection (including mumps, hepatitis, rubella, and Epstein-Barr virus)
surgery that temporarily cuts off blood supply to the pancreas
injury to the abdomen
cystic fibrosis
cigarette smoking
family history of pancreatitis
ulcers
Occult gallstones (This is when you have gallstones that hold séances)
Use of certain medications (such as corticosteroids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and antibiotics such as tetracycline)

"The reported annual incidence of acute pancreatitis has ranged from 4.9 to 35 per 100,000 population. Acute pancreatitis is a leading cause of hospitalization in the United States." 

" The true nature of acute pancreatitis still remains to be elucidated. The causes of acute pancreatitis are various, and its mechanism is common." 

"Accurate assessment of disease incidence is difficult since mild disease may be missed. Similarly, death may occur before the diagnosis is made in severe and fulminant attacks. In one report, for example, the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis was not made until autopsy in 10 percent of patients."

A few days ago I mentioned that I had pancreatitis to some one who said 'oh yes my Mom had that, they said it was because she had too much irion." Oh geez I had done all these searches and hadn't run across that before. I did a search and found this: 

The major cause of chronic pancreatitis is alcohol abuse (in 90 percent of all cases). In the other 10 percent of all cases, chronic pancreatitis is a result of hemochromatosis (excess iron in the body) or heredity.

Yikes, every source indicates that a main cause is excess use of alcohol. (except the ones that don't mention it at all) Some say 60% some say 40% some have a different number. Few define just what amount of alcohol is excessive. Over a period of years is somewhat consistent. 

Then I proceeded to look up every drug or supplement that I have taken. Most are already on this list. I and a growing number of people have taken a dislike for the cholesterol lowering drugs called Statins*. In some cases you have to resort to looking things up by their class name. *HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors are on the list. Most of the things I take have been linked to pancreatitis in some way. None have a clear cut track record of being a consistent cause. I was suspicious of the Metformin I take for diabetes. Since it has something to do with insulin sensitivity. Turns out it does it's job through the liver and most of it's side effects are good.  

After all the web searching I don't have any firm answers. Even though my drinking has been mostly light and very sporadic (once or twice a month) the last dozen years I haven't ruled it out as a cause. The 25 years before had runs where I'd drink to excess 2 or 3 nights a week. I've never been any good at drinking by myself but during the holiday season with all it's social events, whew! 

Still what has triggered my attacks has yet to be established. The big one may have been Rye whiskey but this last one and the one last summer couldn't have been.


Did he say drain the stomach via a tube down the nose?
http://goo.gl/sEHga

Comprehensive explanation of pancreatitis
http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/medicalpubs/diseasemanagement/gastroenterology/chronic-pancreatitis/

Merck has created The Merck Manuals, a series of healthcare books for medical professionals and consumers. 

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/gastrointestinal_disorders/pancreatitis/acute_pancreatitis.html

Ongoing studies

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=pancreatitis+&Search=Search

Drugs and drug classes associated with acute pancreatitis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190558/table/TU1/

Metformin effect on pancreatitis correlation is not causation. 
http://www.ehealthme.com/ds/metformin/pancreatitis

The risk of acute pancreatitis associated with acid-suppressing drugs
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2014950/

However they pre blocked persons with other conditions that may be related.
Long-term use of novo-ranitidine may cause inflammation of the pancreas and the liver.
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/241084-side-effects-of-novo-ranitidine/#ixzz2STtWd8dR
http://doublecheckmd.com/EffectsDetail.do?dname=omeprazole&sid=12233&eid=2525
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-pump_inhibitor#Short-term
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1542356506012018
http://www.healthcentral.com/encyclopedia/408/195.html

Can Statins Cause Pancreatitis?
http://forecast.diabetes.org/magazine/ask-experts/can-statins-cause-pancreatitis

Drug Induced Pancreatitis Might Be a Class Effect of Statin Drugs
http://www.joplink.net/prev/200507/200507_11.pdf

Add'l links
http://www.spacedoc.com/pancreatitis_statins.html
http://www.betacellsindiabetes.org/expertblog/statin-medications-and-new-onset-diabetes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2959220/
http://www.elderlydriver.org/blog/adverse-side-effects-of-statin-drugs-1

More trash talk about statins
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19159124


Toxicity of Indomethacin
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=333091 

And some good in prevention following a procedure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endoscopic_retrograde_cholangiopancreatography

Plant poisons like cyanide also can cause pancreatitis
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/Plantox/Detail.CFM?ID=21728

Cures, treatments and special Diets
Aloe vera juice
http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/pancreatitis.html
http://www.pancreatitisdiet.net/