Gallbladder

Wandering and
Hard-to-Resolve Pain

The The gallbladder is often a misunderstood or rather an incorrectly acknowledged part of pain and disease processes. In the Japanese maps of acupuncture, the gallbladder meridian system traverses and influences most of the joints in the body, binding into the back in several places, hugs the scapulas and shoulders, and goes up into the neck and head with several streams of influence.

It can be in play for headaches, difficult to resolve neck and shoulder pain, digestive disorders, the misdiagnosis of sciatica, some breast disorders, and chronic bloating. With such far-reaching effects on the body, gallbladder dysfunction is often a contributing factor in the development of many other ailments.

Often when the immune system is out of whack, it plays into disrupting the functioning of the gallbladder as well. In these cases, the treatment of any aspect of gallbladder-affected disease states requires treatment of the immune system because what is in play is a maladaptation of the sequencing of waste removal from the body, affecting how pathogenic insults are dealt with by the body.

Gallbladder pain always characteristically moves around, hence the name wandering pain in Chinese medicine. In explaining this, the gallbladder meridian (like all of the meridians) can be likened to a soaker hose that should contain energetic fluidity, smooth and flowing, irrigating the muscle groups it traverses.

When it is not smooth and flowing, there will exist a state of energetic and physical congestion with ranges of influence impacting the body in a myriad of ways. These include tight shoulders, frozen shoulders, stiff necks, and headaches often more acute in periods of stress, intercostal pain, lower back pain, glute pain, pains in the legs, feet problems, uneven leg length because of problems in the stomach meridian, digestive issues, and even the chronic and acute clenching of the jaw.

When it starts to resolve, by its very nature, it will start moving around to the next area of congestion as the body which gives us the indication that the problem is ‘on its way out’. So, we bring about the restoration of flow in the bilateral meridian structure and the muscle groups under its influence, with the resulting and very much needed resolution of pain.