Many people are interested in whether physical activity in pancreatitis is permissible, especially if sport or physical labor was constantly present before the disease and it is almost impossible to avoid it. In order to give a definitive answer and maintain a balance between lack of activity and exhaustion, you need to figure out what effect physical activity has on a patient with pancreatitis.
How Exercise Affects Pancreas
Moderate physical activity affects the state of human health only positively. It is necessary to coordinate with the attending physician how often and how intensively the patient will play sports. The doctor, providing recommendations, is based on the clinical picture, age of the patient and a number of other criteria. Even a completely healthy person may be at risk if this ratio is violated.
And yet, in the case of physical exertion with pancreatitis, there are a lot of restrictions. The implementation of certain movements, as well as weight lifting, can exert pressure on the abdominal cavity. This phenomenon is especially dangerous in case of inflammation of the pancreas, because the organ parenchyma is already in a state of swelling due to the ongoing inflammatory process. As a result, the outflow of bile is aggravated, stagnant processes appear, which provokes only an exacerbation of the disease.
Exercise with pancreatic pancreatitis can cause stones to move along its ducts, and this will require surgical treatment. It is important to take into account the fact that insulin production is disrupted during the course of the chronic form of the disease. In order to maintain a person’s energy level at an adequate level, adequate glucose uptake is necessary. If the normal course of such a process is impossible, diabetes begins to develop. As a result, overloading the body can not only cause exacerbation of pancreatitis, but also cause the development of several other diseases.
Permissible loads with pancreatitis
Speaking about sports with pancreatitis - it is possible or not to engage in it without harm to health, it is worthwhile to understand that such exercises should be aimed at shortening the rehabilitation period after the illness. It is necessary to accelerate the process of tissue regeneration, resume the exocrine and endocrine functions of the pancreas. Achievement of these goals will be helped by an exercise therapy specialist - a doctor who will select the optimal exercises and make up a treatment complex for the patient.
The maximum allowable indicator of physical activity depends on the stage of the course of pancreatitis in the patient, the severity of the existing inflammation, the patient's age and weight, the level of general sports training and the presence of concomitant diseases - the presence of arterial hypertension, arrhythmia, angina pectoris, lung, nervous, musculoskeletal and other body systems.
Only taking into account the above factors, it is possible to correctly determine the normal level of physical activity for a patient with pancreatitis, as well as make up a therapeutic complex of exercises for the patient.
When can I do sports?
One of the frequently asked questions by patients when they are diagnosed with pancreatitis is whether physical activity can be tolerated in this condition. Light sport is necessary because it helps to normalize the functional work of the human nervous system, improve metabolism, normalize blood flow, and maintain muscle tone.
Doctors recommend patients to train at a slow or medium pace, but not necessarily as fast as they did before. Effective and at the same time safe will be 20-minute complexes that need to be started no earlier than one and a half to two hours after eating. Be sure to pre-ventilate the classroom, install a humidifier there.
Each sports training should end with complete relaxation of the person. It is necessary for 5-7 minutes to lie on your back, stretch your arms along the body and breathe calmly.
Training in the chronic stage of pancreatitis
Exercise in chronic pancreatitis can provoke excesses of the ducts of the gland, increase pressure inside the abdominal cavity and, as a result, cause an exacerbation of the disease. In the chronic stage of the disease, medical specialists allow breathing exercises, since proper breathing allows you to increase oxygen supply to the patient’s body, normalize his emotional and mental state, relax consciousness and tone muscles, improve intestinal motility, prevent the development or relapse of the disease, and increase the outflow of bile.
You need to do breathing exercises in the morning on an empty stomach.
The acute form of the disease and sports
Exercise during pancreatitis at the stage of exacerbation must be excluded, since at this stage it is necessary to provide the patient with peace, to allow the pancreas to recover. The decisive factors that often make it possible to overcome the acute phase of pancreatitis are therapeutic fasting (no longer than 2-3 days) and bed rest.
Classes for cholecystopancreatitis
Exercise for pancreatitis and cholecystitis should be metered and moderate. Effective for improving blood circulation and accelerating the outflow of bile will be raising the limbs and tilting the body. Each of the workouts should include general exercises to strengthen all muscle groups. Perform them at a moderate pace, without unnecessary burden on the body.
Exercise During Remission
Exercise for pancreatic pancreatitis at the stage of remission, when the signs of the patient’s chronic inflammatory process do not bother, must be present. Moderate training will help improve overall health and well-being, as well as extend the period of remission.
Absolute contraindications for sports
Usually, doctors respond that it is possible to use physical activity with pancreatitis for therapeutic purposes. But there are also cases when playing sports is absolutely contraindicated. If, contrary to the doctor’s recommendations, to start training after too short a period of time after an attack, you can seriously harm a weak body, increase the activity of the inflammatory process, worsen the patient’s condition.
Sports training is strictly prohibited in the following cases:
- Any inflammatory process at the stage of exacerbation.
- An early stage of rehabilitation after surgery.
- Gallstone disease with large stones in the ducts and gall bladder.
- Serious bleeding disorders, tendency to thrombosis and bleeding.
- Decompensated pathologies of the cardiovascular system.
- Malignant neoplasms.
Pancreatitis and Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding requires the implementation of sports exercises associated with heavy and intense loads, with the use of force, lifting large weights. This kind of physical activity with pancreatitis can cause an increase in intra-abdominal pressure, which will extremely negatively affect the patient's condition.
Exacerbation of the disease can also be caused by other complications that arose as a result of strength sports training of bodybuilders:
- pathological changes in the withdrawal of bile;
- fixing changes in blood circulation in the tissues of all abdominal organs, including the pancreas;
- bending of the gallbladder.
The heavy and intense loads in pancreatitis that bodybuilding suggests are too much stress for the body. As a result of prolonged repetition of classes, there will be a risk of diabetes. Under energy loads, metabolic processes are also aggravated, decay products multiply in the circulatory system. After penetrating the general course, they are able to irritate organs, provoke an inflammatory process.
The benefits of breathing exercises for a patient with pancreatitis
To maintain the body in good shape, you must regularly engage in special breathing exercises. The movements are simple, but they work out the muscles perfectly, provide a light healing massage of the internal organs. As a result of constant competently designed classes, you can achieve the following results:
- saturation of cells with oxygen;
- complete emotional and physical relaxation;
- normalization of the emotional background;
- mood improvement;
- muscle tone;
- Improving the quality of intestinal motility.
It is recommended to do breathing exercises in the early morning, after waking up, always on an empty stomach. You can not exercise immediately after eating. The main point of doing the exercises is to increase the volume of the chest through inhalations and exhalations with the abdomen being drawn in while exhaling. The process of inspiration and expiration is divided into passages that are accompanied by controlled tremors and tension of the abdominal wall.
The healing effect of yoga
Exercise for pancreatitis is possible or not? This question is asked by many. As it has already become clear, sports are useful for patients, but a lot depends on the type of activity and their intensity.
With chronic pancreatitis, yoga classes are often recommended. This is gymnastics, which includes physical exercises based on statics and flexibility, and breathing manipulations. Also, through meditative practice, you can improve the psychological state, achieve emotional balance.
With pancreatitis, patients are recommended hatha yoga. It involves the use of simple positions that even a person who has no training can do. The most popular asanas include:
- "mountain";
- "wood";
- "horizon";
- "warrior";
- "triangle";
- "hero".
Such asanas such as “dog”, “lean forward”, “wide angle”, “camel and cat” are recommended for chronic pancreatic inflammation.
Exercise for people suffering from pancreatitis will be useful and effective assistants in the fight against the disease only if, before and during the exercise, the patient follows the doctor's recommendations. Training should be correctly selected, taking into account contraindications, and also performed at a moderate pace.