How many drinks per day and how many years of that amount would it take to develop chronic pancreatitis?

Answer 1

Although it is a proven FACT that alcohol ABUSE causes pancreatitis, chronic pancreatitis has many other causes. In almost 11 years of dealing with chronic pancreatitis I met one person whose disease was a result of alcohol abuse. That said I am curious what your motivation for the question would be. Do you think that you have damaged your pancreas? I don't believe that anyone will be able to give you an accurate number of drinks here. You will find that there are few people who have adequate information about pancreatitis and the others are like every thing else ask a question and even if they don't really know the answer they will make up something to sound good to them, when in reality it is not true, nor even senseable.
The previous poster mentioned something about the liver, which is inaccurate. It is possible to have liver damage from years and years of alcohol abuse, I don't think that is the same with pancreatitis. I think the problems beings with the pancreas, and then a person finds out years later that they have cirrohosis of the liver ( scar tissue developed in the liver)
Best thing I can tell you, if your abusing alcohol and worried about pancreatitis... STOP DRINKING. If you have been told you have pancreatitis your not alone there are many support groups available for people with this disease. There is no CURE for pancreatitis and symptom control can be very challenging, there are treatments available. Newer surgical techniques that offer people hope where there once was none. See the links below.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/TotalPancreatectomy/?yguid=224755783
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ThePancreatitisPlace/?yguid=224755783
http://www.diabetesinstitute.org/diabinst/treatmentspancreatitis.html
Good luck to you hope this helps you.

Answer 2

It depends on how tough your pancreas is. Different people have different levels of tolerance to alcohol.

It also depends on how tough your liver is - the liver is often damaged by drinking too much, and if your liver goes first, it doesn't matter how tough your pancreas is.

Finally, it depends on how often you drink and drive. You may just hit a light post on your 2nd day of trying this fool stunt, and then the world will never know.