I’m sorry you’ve been through this. There’s nothing like pancreatitis for pain or feeling weak. Its going to take you a while to feel normal I’m afraid, think months rather than weeks, but you will get there.
First of all, and you may have been told this, but no alcohol, ever again in your life, and I mean none. Not in cooking, not a small sip at Christmas or weddings. This holds even if your pancreatitis was completely non alcohol related. My first attack was gallbladder related and I’ve since had milder autoimmune flares but I’ve still been told no alcohol ever, and that’s the first thing they’ll tell you on the pancreatitis forums. Pancreatitis is a potential killer and alcohol always irritates it - it isn’t worth the risk.
Secondly, eat low fat foods. We are talking really extremely low fat here. The pancreatitis forums, full of people with chronic nor repeated pancreatitis recommend under 10g fat a day. After my first bad bout that’s what I had to stick to for a long time. It means your food is going to be very plain, though you can have spices etc. it means plain chicken with no skin, grilled, with vegetables, potatoes no fat, boiled rice, etc. Your pancreas needs time to recover and fat aggravates it and gives it work to do. If you head over to www.pancreatitis-forum.org.uk/ you’ll find a ton of tips on foods over there. For about 8 months I had to cut all cake, biscuits, even a lot of dairy and eggs, because the fat content was too high. I can have them now so it wasn’t forever, but I do take Creon (more about that in a mo) and I still can’t eat extremely fatty things or I end up back in hospital with a flare.I’ve had my gallbladder removed too and things are so much better since, but I still have to take care.
Now, things to badger your doctor over. If you haven’t had a test for coeliac disease, get one. Untreated coeliac disease was the root reason for all my problems. It destroys the villi in your intestine which starts to turn off the process which alerts the pancreas when you eat, and can cause havoc. Next is to get a stool test to check for pancreatic insufficiency. If you have any degree of this, you need Creon and many people recovering from pancreatitis benefit from it anyway, but it’s expensive and doctors can be reluctant to prescribe just for that. But if you get the test and it shows any pancreatic insufficiency, they should prescribe it. It’s a digestive enzyme that does the work of the pancreas for you. Creon will digest your fat for you. You can’t overdo it or take too much and I found I needed a crazy amount at first but need very much less now. You can get digestive enzymes over the counter which is worth considering but they won’t be nearly as strong or effective as Creon.
Lastly, good luck and take it very, very easy. Your body has been through a huge amount and you won’t get better overnight, but you will get better. Head on over to the pancreatitis forum I linked as they are brilliant and will give you so much more specific and up to date help than I can, as my main acute pancreatitis attack was five years ago now.