Acupuncture and Gallbladder Pain Symptoms or Cholelithiasis

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine can successfully reduce the symptoms of gallbladder pain and dissolve gallstones.

The gallbladder is a pear shaped sac that is lodged on the surface of the right lobe of the liver. So gallbladder pain symptoms would reflect in an area near your ribs, on the right hand side of your chest, below your nipple. This area is referred to as the Upper Right Quadrant.

The main reason why this part of your body, being directly near your gallbladder and liver, becomes very painful and tender to touch is because gallstones may have formed in your gallbladder and the stones may be blocking ducts. This disease is called Cholelithiasis.

There is also another common ailment called Cholecystitis. This is usually a very acute manifestation of gallbladder pain, a complication of having gallstones present in the gallbladder. Acute cholecystitis is almost always associated with obstruction of the gallbladder neck (the cystic duct) by a gallstone.

Both cholelithiasis and acute cholecystitis present with the cardinal feature of pain in the right upper quadrant, but also in the epigastrium, the right shoulder tip or interscapular region.

I should also point out to you that some people who suffer from these recurrent painful symptoms do not have gallstones at all. It is a disorder called "biliary dyskinesia" which affects the gallbladder or the sphincter of Oddi.

First... let’s understand why you need your gallbladder in your body.

The gallbladder receives bile from the liver via the hepatic duct, and then it stores and concentrates the bile. In an adult, the gall bladder holds about 32 mL of bile.

Click here to find about bile and how gallstones are formed.

The gall bladder then excretes the concentrated bile in order to help you digest the fats you have eaten in your diet, for example, after a fatty meal of deep fried fish and chips. In fact, excess consumption of any type of fatty food can cause gallstones.

To excrete that bile, the gallbladder needs to contract, ejecting bile through the common bile duct into the duodenum to allow digestion to take place.

So if your biliary system is obstructed by gallstones, the contraction can lead to pain. If the obstruction is severe, jaundice can result. This obstruction may require surgical or other intervention such as acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. But, in general, surgery is only indicated if you show symptoms of the disease.

Click here to read about Who is likely to get gallstones and Who is at risk

The chance of symptoms or dangerous complications resulting from gallstones is about 20%. The disease can also be asymptomatic, which means some people can live normally for years without any pain even though they have gallstones.

And for more information on how you can treat gallstones, please click here.

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