What are the signs and symptoms of acute pancreatitis?
If you’re wondering how in the world you can remember them all in nursing school, stick around, because I’m going to give you a super easy breakdown of them so you don’t need to worry over your med-surg exams.
I’ll also be giving you all the critical thinking behind the pancreatitis signs and symptoms, so it’s basically like I’m giving you all the answers.
Be sure to watch until the end, because it might just show up on your nursing school exam.
TIMESTAMPS:
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:51 What is acute pancreatitis?
- 1:23 Learn pathophysiology
- 3:02 Acute pancreatitis pathophysiology
- 5:29 Acute pancreatitis signs and symptoms
RELATED VIDEOS
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS | What You NEED TO KNOW for Nursing School
Type 2 Diabetes Pathophysiology (Step-By-Step)
Diabetic Ketoacidosis: DKA Pathophysiology and Nursing Interventions (Step-By-Step)
What is Shock? (Shock Pathophysiology)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
What are the signs and symptoms of acute pancreatitis? If you’re wondering how in the world you can remember them all in nursing school, stick around, because I’m going to give you a super easy breakdown of them so you don’t need to worry over your med-surg exams. I’ll also be giving you all the critical thinking behind it, so it’s basically like I’m giving you all the answers. So stick around, because it might just show up on your nursing school exam.
—
Hey there friend, Christina here, and welcome to the Nursing School Show. I’m here to help you pass nursing school and become an AMAZING nurse. So if you want to rock nursing school without losing your mind, hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and lets dive in!
When you hear the term pancreatitis, the first thing that should come to your mind is:
Inflammation of the pancreas
That’s all that it means. The pancreas is inflamed and it can’t do it’s job as well.
Acute pancreatitis happens fairly suddenly, and doesn’t usually cause long-term damage. However, if there are multiple acute attacks of pancreatitis, then it can lead to chronic pancreatitis, which is more of a slow and steady inflammation and can lead to permanent damage of the pancreas.
Anytime you study a med-surg disorder, like acute pancreatitis, you always need to learn the pathophysiology FIRST, and here’s why: the pathophysiology tells you what’s happening with the disorder in the body, what is actually going on with it. And the signs and symptoms of that disorder stem from that underlying cause.
So instead of just memorizing a list of signs and symptoms, which is NOT helpful for you when it comes to exam time – I’ll tell you why in a second – you’ll connect the signs and symptoms all back to the underlying pathophysiology and ACTUALLY be able to critically think about it.
I know it can be tempting to just make some flashcards and memorize everything without understanding it. But if you’ve been in nursing school for like, 2 seconds, you know that you’re never tested on memorization. You’re tested on your critical thinking skills and how to APPLY the information you learned. So that’s what we focus on. And don’t worry, I’m going to give you all the answers here in this video.
If you’ve been around for a while, you know I always like to put things into simple step-by-step processes to help you learn it faster. So I’m going to walk you through the steps of acute pancreatitis pathophysiology, but please know that these aren’t official steps of anything. I just put them together in this way to help you learn it easier and faster. I think they are super helpful, so let’s do it.
The first step is there is a trigger that activates pancreatic enzymes. The 2 major causes of acute pancreatitis are alcohol use and gallstones.
Normally, the pancreas is responsible for releasing enzymes that help you digest your food. These enzymes are inactive when they’re inside the pancreas. They leave the pancreas and are then activated to help break down all the food.
But alcohol can trigger these enzymes to activate too quickly, when they’re still INSIDE the pancreas. The same process happens with gallstones, there’s a blockage, so the pancreatic enzymes can’t leave, and they get activated while they’re still inside the pancreas.
After these enzymes have been triggered, they begin to eat and breakdown the tissue inside the pancreas.
This is called autodigestion. The pancreas is literally eating itself!
And this leads to step number 3, which is where the inflammatory response is triggered, leading to inflammation and swelling in the pancreas, and further tissue damage inside the pancreas.
Then finally, step number 4 is complications.
If the inflammation and edema persists and is severe enough, it can lead to pancreatic tissue death (which is called necrosis) and acute kidney injury. Blood flow will be reduced to the kidneys due to all the swelling, leading to possible kidney injury. It’s also possible for GI contents to spill out into the blood stream. If those pancreatic enzymes wear away at the digestive tract, it can cause small holes for bowel contents to leak out, which may lead to sepsis.
So the key point to remember is this:
When you think of pancreatitis, the first thing that should come to your mind is inflammation of the pancreas. The pancreas is inflamed, swollen, and unhappy, so it can’t function as well as usual.
So keep this pathophysiology in mind as we go through the signs and symptom of acute pancreatitis. Because remember, the pathophysiology is what drives the signs and symptoms. So you MUST understand the pathophysiology of acute pancreatitis FIRST, before you can understand the signs and symptoms.
So here’s the list of signs and symptoms that may occur because of acute pancreatitis:
- Abdominal pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- Decreased bowel sounds
- Elevated serum lipase and amylase
- Elevated blood glucose
- Fever
- Increased heart rate
- Increased white blood cells
- Cullen’s sign
- Grey Turner’s sign
Now don’t freak out. I know this list is long, but don’t worry. I’ll walk you through the signs and symptoms of acute pancreatitis along with WHY they happen, so that you can understand the critical thinking behind it and get questions about it RIGHT on your exams.
And if you’re a NursingSOS Member, head on over to your dashboard and print out the pancreatitis study guide we have for you. We’ve also got the whole pancreatitis video series in there for you as well, covering the nursing assessment and nursing interventions. So be sure to check that out.
Now, there are 2 main issues here with acute pancreatitis that you need to know:
- The pancreas is damaged and isn’t able to release it’s normal digestive enzymes like it usually does, they are stuck inside the pancreas
- The pancreas may not be able to regulate insulin production like it normally does, either
So the main symptoms you’ll see in a patient with pancreatitis will stem from one of these 2 issues: not enough digestive enzymes, and imbalanced insulin production.
The first symptom you might notice is abdominal pain that is mainly located in the upper quadrants of the abdomen and radiates to the back (it may also be worse when laying down). The pain is usually worse after eating because the stomach is requiring the pancreas to release the digestive enzymes and insulin to help regulate blood sugar and digest the ingested food, but it’s not able to, which can lead to pain.
Nausea and vomiting may accompany the abdominal pain and the abdomen may be tender especially in the left upper quadrant.
The patient may also have decreased bowel sounds because of all the swelling and inflammation, along with the decrease in digestive enzymes. The bowels will stall out, possibly leading to an ileus, where the GI tract can’t move the contents forward, it all just sits there.
Now since the pancreas can’t release those digestive enzymes as well, they can just leak out into the blood vessels around the pancreas. So those digestive enzyme levels, namely lipase and amylase, will be elevated in the blood. Along with that, their blood glucose level will be higher as well since the insulin can’t get into the bloodstream to help regulate the blood sugar levels.
A fever, increased heart rate, and increased white blood cells are usually present as well because of the inflammatory process happening inside the pancreas.
And there are 2 signs of pancreatitis you need to be aware of, because nursing schools love to test you one these:
- Cullen’s sign
- Grey Turner’s sign
Cullen’s sign is bruising around the belly button. And Grey Turner’s (or just Turner’s) sign is bruising on the patients sides, the flank area. So Cullen’s sign is bruising around the belly button, and Turner’s sign is bruising here on the sides.
These are caused by the leaking of digestive enzymes into the pancreas and surrounding tissues. Those digestive enzymes literally break down the tissues, causing bleeding.
So here’s the key point you MUST remember when learning the signs and symptoms of acute pancreatitis: there are 2 main issues:
- The pancreas is damaged and isn’t able to release it’s normal digestive enzymes like it usually does
- The pancreas may not be able to regulate insulin production like it normally does, either
Now make sure to like, comment, subscribe and share this video with a friend. And click on this med-surg playlist right here so you can rock your med-surg nursing class, and go become the nurse that God created only YOU to be. And I’ll catch you in the next video.
