Different patients offer various descriptions of pain in the liver area. Some feel severe discomfort - they say it feels like their liver is ready to explode. Some patients even experience pain in the area around the right shoulder, and discomfort when they breath in, or cough. Patients with liver pain sometimes mention a swollen or bloated feeling in the abdominal area.

There are a number of possible causes for liver pain. It can be a problem with the liver itself, or it result from a problem with some other organ or part of the body that is related to the liver in some way. For example, there could be trouble with the gallbladder, biliary tract, or neighboring blood vessels. Pain coming from the liver itself is generally because of inflammation of some kind. Such inflammation can be caused for any number of reasons.

Cirrhosis, fatty liver disease, liver cancer, liver failure and hepatitis are several of the most serious threats to your liver. There are, in fact, many different types of liver disease that can cause you to have liver pain.

But once again, liver pain can also be the result of a problem elsewhere in the body or the digestive system, like an obstruction in the biliary tract or a stone. This type of pain is known to doctors as biliary colic. It frequently comes on suddenly, lasts for a few hours, and then subsides. Pain of this type starts in your upper middle or upper right quadrant. It may extend to your shoulder, or to the area between the shoulder blades in your upper back.

Biliary colic generally happens because you’ve eaten a large, cholesterol-rich meal and your gallbladder is having trouble processing all the fat. A number of other conditions can trigger liver pain. These include a liver abscess, liver cysts, and cholangitis or inflammation of the biliary duct. Poor gallbladder health can also cause what feels like liver pain.

Several medications are available that will help relieve liver pain. They include:

* NSAIDs or Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which reduce the symptoms of swelling and pain.

* A drug called Meperidine, which is better known as Demerol.

* Morphine

Liver pain shouldn’t be ignored. Anytime you have soreness or tenderness near the bottom of your ribcage, it’s best to talk to your doctor. Pain in this area may mean you have liver and gallbladder problems, both of which deserve prompt medical attention.

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