Referred Pain, Very Interesting Thought!

[darlindeb25]

I have been going to physical therapy for over a month now, yesterday being my last one. My therapist seemed nice enough, but I now feel he has let me down. I feel like I was just a paycheck to him. I didn't go in expecting miracles, but I did think I wouldn't leave hurting more than I did before going. My PT is on my neck, into my shoulders, suppose to help with my headaches, which have not gotten better, not at all.

First I get a sonic massage, the girls always put 4 sonic patches on me, yesterday, he did only 2. Often times, the sonic massage would make my muscles spasm. After it, they do a very light massage, then Chris (the therapist) would come and do another massage...it all takes about 1 hour. I have to admit, the girls do a better massage than he does.

The girl I had yesterday is taking classes for massage therapy, and also is training there. She ended up doing everything yesterday, except for the patches. She was telling me how inflamed (like I can't tell :cry: )my left side is...I started this PT with no pain on the left side, she said my right side is in much better shape than the left. She called it the "gall bladder" muscle, I thought I misunderstood what she was saying.

When I got home, I googled "gall bladder muscle". It was a fascinating read. It's called, referred pain.

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If your phone keeps ringing over and over from an annoying prank caller, the "symptom" you experience is your discomfort from the phone constantly ringing, disturbing your peace. The problem doesn't start with the phone, though. It started with the prank caller on the other end of the line.

What makes things interesting is that just about every organ we have seems to have a referred pain pattern.

You might have gotten up one morning, for example, with a "crick in your neck". Pain into one side of the neck -- typically, but not always, the right side -- that might radiate down around your shoulder blade.

Patients come in from time to time with this kind of pain. The usual explanation goes something like, "Well, I must have slept wrong or something." In many cases they're surprised to find out that the source of their pain has little to do with how they slept, and a lot to do with their gall bladder!

The gall bladder has a referred pain area that usually covers the right side of the neck and shoulder, down around the shoulder blade. As such we have to rule out gall bladder trouble as a source of their pain anytime a patient presents with this kind of pattern.

In short, if pain around the shoulder and neck turns out to be referred from the gall bladder, no amount of soft-tissue work will resolve the problem alone.

It mentions that often times, if we eat something that we may be allergic to, that allergy can show itself by being a "pain in the neck"! I found this very fascinating. Anyone else?

[TrillumHunter]

I've been reading about this as well since I just had my gallbladder out. I never had classic symptoms but agreed to have it out because I was so sick. Turns out I had cholesterolosis. It's a mostly silent disease of the gallbladder that sometimes can develop into cancer. Scary! But in my reading I found the referred pain reference and immediately recognized it. I could never stand to have my neck massaged. It used to kill me when people would come behind me and squeeze my neck. I'm happy to report that it is completely gone.

Darlindeb, you should get your gallbladder looked at soon. My was fully infected and festered. The dr told my friend, a nurse he works with, I was very close to being septic.

Take care of yourself!

[darlindeb25]

Thanks TrillumHunter, I will ask my doctor about this one. I had never heard of it before.

[curlyfries]

Hmmmmm...........that sounds exactly like my problem. Trouble is.......I had my gallbladder removed years ago.