Stones in the Pancreas

Stones are forming in your pancreas. Small hardenings in the fine ducts through which a living juice normally flows — the juice that breaks down food, that turns nourishment into life, that makes sweetness available in the first place. Now something there has calcified. Something that should have flowed has turned to stone. Medicine speaks of pancreatic duct stones, often in the context of chronic pancreatitis. They develop over years — silently, gradually, until the pain comes.

The pain of this condition is among the most intense a person can experience. A deep, boring, sometimes girdle-shaped pain in the middle of the upper abdomen. Often it radiates into the back. Sometimes it is dull, sometimes it is an assault that brings you to your knees. Added to this: nausea, weight loss, digestive problems, a sense of exhaustion that sits deeper than anything you have known before.