Emergencies >>>> What to do with hepatic colic?

What to do with hepatic colic?

Sudden pain in the area of the liver is called hepatic colic. Such a painful attack may develop due to spasm of the bile ducts or their mechanical blockage (stones, blood clots, tumor). A banal running after outgoing vehicles, a shake-up when driving over bumps can give an impetus to the development of hepatic colic. The provoking moments that contribute to the development of hepatic colic can be inflammatory processes in the biliary tract against the background of abundant fatty food, violations of the therapeutic diet, alcoholic libations, and sudden physical exertion.

Signs of hepatic colic arise against the background of complete health (an imaginary state), when a person does not expect to feel unwell. It is the suddenness of a painful attack in the area of the liver (in the area of the right hypochondrium) that suggests that hepatic colic has developed. Sudden pain spasms are severe, can radiate to the right side, to the abdomen, to the right shoulder. The person is trying to find the optimal body position in which the pain will be more bearable or go away. But the pain symptom with hepatic colic can have a different duration: from a few seconds to minutes or up to several hours, and even be calculated in days. Walking or any twisting of the body can aggravate the onset of hepatic colic.

If hepatic colic was provoked by a blockage of the bile duct with a stone, then due to the excessive filling of the lumen of the duct with the volume of bile, it begins to stretch, which causes acute pain. In such cases, an increased volume of the duct or the gallbladder itself can be palpated by palpation in the area of the liver. In difficult cases, a person suffering from hepatic colic may develop nausea and a gag reflex, fever, increased sweating, impaired blood supply (pallor of the skin appears), dizziness may appear (or even loss of consciousness occurs against the background of intolerable pain). When the pain subsides, all of these signs gradually disappear.

Short-term hepatic colic does not require special medical action (pain can occur suddenly and also suddenly disappear forever) - you just need to take a resting position (stop if you walked or ran; lie down if you were sitting; take a more comfortable horizontal position that reduces the intensity of pain). But with a protracted nature of hepatic pain, it is necessary to take several steps so that the pain symptom does not develop into a painful shock. What to do with hepatic colic?

Spasm of the bile ducts, regardless of whether it is caused by a blockage of the lumen or another reason that led to a violation of the patency of the hepatic duct, is relieved by taking a hot bath, which relaxes the smooth muscles (including the smooth muscles of the internal organs, the walls of the vessels, the walls of the ducts). Apply a hot heating pad to the liver area for the same purpose as taking a bath.

To relieve a pain symptom, that is, relieve spasm, drugs are used - antispasmodics (and not analgesics). If the pain symptom takes on a long, painful, not passing character, then an ambulance is called. Prolonged hepatic colic is already a medical emergency that may require special medical procedures and even surgery.

It is necessary to distinguish between the intensity of pain associated with hepatic colic, that is, a sharp spasm of the choleretic ducts, when the liver area hurts unbearably, and aching pains in the liver that are not paroxysmal and related not to spasm, but to pathological phenomena in the liver itself (acute or chronic course), which also causes pain in the liver.

Such painful phenomena in the liver - aching, but bearable pains - speak of painful processes, and not of sudden attacks, and in these cases they do not take a hot bath and do not apply a heating pad to the right hypochondrium, since aching pains can cause infectious or toxic damage liver tissue, as well as the cause of inflammation or suppuration of liver tissue, when it is very dangerous to warm the liver area with hot water or dry heat. Pain in hepatic colic differs from pain in acute or chronic liver diseases, which is in the nature of suddenness against the background of absolutely normal health.

Pain in the liver area is not treated with analgesics, but the real cause of such pain is found out and drugs are taken that are adequate for the liver disease.