Normally, your liver shouldn’t feel tender at all; something else hurts in there: Your liver can merely be the factor that has caused that pain, but there’s no way you can feel pain in the liver. However, if it hurts, something must be wrong. First of all, make sure it’s your liver you’re touching.
The standard palpation method requires you to lie down and place your hand just below your right ribs (actually you might have to hook your fingers in there a little, especially if you are somewhat bigger than average) and breathe. You should now be feeling the liver against your fingers. If you are not sure, it’s better to ask someone else to do it for you. However, palpation (and self palpation, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing) is less important: Not even the doctor will be able to diagnose a liver condition based on palpation solely. Tests are always necessary to make a diagnosis in this case.
The idea is that you might confuse liver pain with abdominal pain or kidney pain or so. Pain in your abdomen, though, can sometimes be a sign of liver toxicity; or, of fatty liver: Should your liver grow bigger, there will be some extra pressure.
If you have a history of alcohol abuse, you have been diagnosed with diabetes or you are a large (like extra large, pretty big) individual, this pain is more likely to indicate fatty liver disease. It sometimes happens to pregnant women, apparently having to do with the pregnancy... Liver cancer also hurts as the tumour grows pressing the other organs.
Among the possible, but less common causes of liver tenderness, one could mention chronic active hepatitis, abscess, leukaemia, inflammation of the portal vein, glandular fever, and certain parasitic diseases.
But you might as well be having some gallstones: Your gallbladder is under the ribcage on the right, too; for some people having gallstones can be painful.
The standard palpation method requires you to lie down and place your hand just below your right ribs (actually you might have to hook your fingers in there a little, especially if you are somewhat bigger than average) and breathe. You should now be feeling the liver against your fingers. If you are not sure, it’s better to ask someone else to do it for you. However, palpation (and self palpation, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing) is less important: Not even the doctor will be able to diagnose a liver condition based on palpation solely. Tests are always necessary to make a diagnosis in this case.
The idea is that you might confuse liver pain with abdominal pain or kidney pain or so. Pain in your abdomen, though, can sometimes be a sign of liver toxicity; or, of fatty liver: Should your liver grow bigger, there will be some extra pressure.
If you have a history of alcohol abuse, you have been diagnosed with diabetes or you are a large (like extra large, pretty big) individual, this pain is more likely to indicate fatty liver disease. It sometimes happens to pregnant women, apparently having to do with the pregnancy... Liver cancer also hurts as the tumour grows pressing the other organs.
Among the possible, but less common causes of liver tenderness, one could mention chronic active hepatitis, abscess, leukaemia, inflammation of the portal vein, glandular fever, and certain parasitic diseases.
But you might as well be having some gallstones: Your gallbladder is under the ribcage on the right, too; for some people having gallstones can be painful.
