Gallbag Pearls

(This post was first published on blog.5minsono.com on November 14, 2015)

So you’ve started to use ultrasound in your assessments of RUQ pain and you’re feeling okay about it.  Here are some tips to help you feel amazing about them.

There are at least 3 maneuvers you can do to help you see a gallbladder when you’re having trouble seeing it:

  1. Try looking in the “X-7” position instead of under the rib margin.
  2. Lay the patient in the left lateral decubitus position
  3. Have the patient take a deep breath in and hold it.

For those tips and more, check out the following video:

  1. When the patient is in the LLDec position try straightening out the right leg to pull the liver down allowing a better acoustical window through the liver when attempting to image from the rib margin.
    You can also try asking the patient to push out the tummy muscles. Believe it or not sometimes it helps.

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