Shoulder Pain and Organ Dysfunction

Recently a new client with shoulder pain commented that her physiotherapist was recognizing how common shoulder pain is in women, especially as they approach their fifth decade of life.  After a single treatment to the gallbladder, her shoulder pain literally disappeared.  Interesting, yes?  But even more interesting is the frequency of gallbladder (GB) dysfunction in the fifties and the myriad ways this issue can  manifest –  this year I’ve treated vertigo, tinnitus, constipation and shoulder pain by working with the gallbladder.  What’s the connection?  Actually there is a direct connection between the right shoulder and the liver/gallbladder; an energetic pathway connection between the GB and  the inner ear; and an obvious functional connection between the bile and digestion.  The nerve that feeds the liver/gallbladder also has sensory branches to the capsule of the right shoulder so pain from these organs very commonly refers to the shoulder.  The GB meridian (Traditional Chinese Medicine) in fact wraps around the ear and can affect hearing as well as balance.  And, as any physician worth their salt knows, visceral and organ pain almost always refers to other regions of the body, sometimes in surprising ways.  One of my professors  used to make the bold statement that the site of pain is never the site of the problem.

One of the unfortunate consequences of reductionist thinking and the scientific method is  our propensity to focus on a single part as if this one part, in isolation, held all the answers.  It is very different from systems thinking in which the whole entity (and every entity is a little different) is responsible for the observed effect.   It is similar to the difference between the ego intellect (“I know how this works.  Let me demonstrate.”) and the surrendering intellect (“I don’t know. I trust I will be shown.”).  This second way of thinking is a little more difficult to embrace, package, prove and sell but it is at the heart of holistic medicine – ‘holistic’ being derived from “the whole”.   This has quite different connotations from the term ‘natural’.  If I was just using natural treatments, I might focus on various herbal applications for the shoulder, nutrients that create predictable outcomes for muscle relaxation, ligament tension etc. and still miss the cause of the problem.

So if you think you’ve tried everything with a troublesome shoulder and had  poor results, consider that perhaps one of your organs is persistently sending you a message and requires attention.