Liver Pain

Liver Pain location is in the right hypochondrium and epigastric region, radiating up, sometimes; encircling appearing suddenly, usually in connection with the consumption of oily and spicy food. Patient shows anxiety, acute pain, Often raises body temperature, and sometimes yellowish sclera of eyes, itching of the skin appears.

Liver pain symptoms

Common liver pain symptoms include neurotic disorders, pain in the right hypochondrium, flatulence and atonic constipation, recurrent pain, complaints of nausea, diarrhea alternating with constipation.

Before the advent of pain, patient feels heaviness in the epigastric region within 1-3 hours after eating, accompanied by abdominal distension, lung chilling and discomfort after eating, diarrhea, occurring especially after taking fried foods. One can also observe xanthomatosis of the skin: on the face (eyelids, cheeks, lips), at, elbow, fingers in the form of yellow spots which is raised above the surface of the skin and swelling of phalanges.

Types of Liver pain

According to modern concepts distinguish physiological and pathological pain, are three main types of pain: somatogenic, neurogenic and psychogenic. There are no clear boundaries between itself somatogenic and visceral pain, psychogenic, and idiopathic pain. The existing classification of pain is far from perfect and the boundaries between different types and classes of pain syndromes are very conventional.

Acute pain: intense unpleasant feeling caused by excessive stimulation of damaging sensitive receptors.

Chronic pain: Hyperalgesia – pain that occurs under the influence of mild noxious stimuli,
Allodynia – pain that occurs under the influence of stimulus intensity not destroyed,
Spontaneous painful spasms – pain arising in the absence of releasing stimuli.

Dull pain in the liver area refers to the disease chronic hepatitis. The pain prolongs to the upper right quadrant of the stomach. The sensation of the pain is dull in nature which gives discomfortness to the patients.

Sharp pain in the liver is due to fatty liver diseases. Most of the patients suffering from fatty liver diseases have no physical symptoms. However some patients have sharp pain in the upper right part of the stomach with hepatomegaly.

There are various causes of acute pain in the liver like hemangioma, drug induced hepatitis, cirrhosis’s of liver, hepatomegaly. The main reasons for development
of acute pain in liver are inflammation of the wall of the gall bladder due to the presence of micro flora in the oral cavity and violation of the outflow of bile. The main importance is attached infection. Pathogens microorganisms can enter in three ways: hematogenous,  lymphogenous and enterogenous.

Chronic pain in liver is due to alcohol adaptive hepatomegaly. It is believed that this condition occurs in one fifth of patients with chronic alcoholism. Increase in size of hepatic cells by increasing the cellular organelles involved in the processing of ethanol. Alcohol increases liver so this compensatory response of the liver in excessive amounts of alcohol.

Differential diagnosis of liver pain

Differential diagnosis of various liver diseases like primary liver cancer is carried out with secondary (metastatic) tumors of this body, cirrhosis, and non-tumor liver diseases. Diagnosis of secondary tumors of the liver becomes obvious when diagnosed primary focus.

In the differential diagnosis of primary liver cancer with cirrhosis helps reaction to alpha-fetoprotein that cirrhosis is negative, and liver scan clearly reveals focal or diffuse its defeat.

Also Read:

• Liver Pain
• Tumor of the Liver – Symptoms and Risk Factors
• Fatty Liver Disease
• Ayurvedic Treatment for Liver Failure
• Sternum Pain (Breast bone Pain)

by Dr John on 27. May, 2010 in Diseases and Conditions