Pain in the right side of your body can come from dozens of different sources, ranging from a pulled muscle to a gallbladder attack to appendicitis. Where exactly you feel the pain, how it behaves, and what other symptoms come with it are the biggest clues to narrowing down the cause. Here’s a breakdown of the most common reasons, organized by location.
Upper Right Abdomen: Gallbladder and Liver
Your upper right abdomen houses your liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, and the first portion of your small intestine. Pain in this area is most commonly tied to gallbladder or liver problems.
Gallstones are one of the most frequent culprits. When a stone blocks a bile duct, it triggers a gallbladder attack: a sudden, intense pain under your right rib cage that typically strikes after eating, especially after a high-fat meal. The pain can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours and may radiate to your right shoulder or back. Eating less saturated fat reduces how much bile your body needs to release, which lowers your chances of triggering an attack. That means cutting back on fried foods, full-fat dairy, red meat, and processed meats like bacon or deli cuts. If the gallbladder itself becomes inflamed (cholecystitis), the pain becomes more persistent and is often accompanied by fever and nausea.
Liver conditions can also cause a dull ache or fullness under the right ribs. These include viral hepatitis, alcohol-related hepatitis, fatty liver disease, and toxic liver injury from medications or supplements. Liver pain tends to feel more like a deep, steady pressure rather than the sharp, crampy episodes that come with gallstones.
Lower Right Abdomen: Appendicitis and Beyond
The lower right abdomen is where most people’s minds go first, and for good reason. Appendicitis is a common cause of pain in this area, and it requires prompt treatment. The classic pattern starts as a vague ache around the belly button, then migrates over several hours to the lower right side. The pain gets worse over time, never better, and intensifies with movement, coughing, or sneezing. That progression is what distinguishes it from trapped gas, which can hurt anywhere in the abdomen but eventually passes on its own.
A specific spot called McBurney’s point, roughly one-third of the way from your hip bone to your belly button, is the hallmark tender area for appendicitis. If pressing on that spot produces sharp pain, or if pressing on the left side of your abdomen causes pain on the right, those are strong indicators.
Other causes of lower right pain include Crohn’s disease (which commonly affects the last portion of the small intestine, located in this quadrant), bowel obstruction, and inguinal hernias. Constipation can also cause localized discomfort here, since the large intestine makes a turn in the lower right abdomen.
Kidney Stones and Urinary Tract Issues
A kidney stone on the right side produces pain that’s hard to ignore and hard to sit still with. It typically starts in the lower back or flank and radiates downward toward the groin. The pain comes in waves, building to a peak and then easing before returning. This wave-like pattern, sometimes called renal colic, is one of the most distinctive features of kidney stones.
Along with the pain, you may notice blood in your urine, a burning sensation when you urinate, a constant urge to go, or cloudy and foul-smelling urine. Nausea and vomiting are common too. A right-sided kidney infection can produce similar flank pain but usually comes with fever, chills, and painful urination as well.
Right-Side Pain in Women
Women have additional structures on the right side of the pelvis, including the right ovary and fallopian tube, that can be sources of pain. Ovarian cysts are extremely common and usually painless, but when a cyst ruptures or twists (a condition called ovarian torsion), it causes sudden, severe pain in the lower right pelvis. Endometriosis can cause chronic right-sided pelvic pain, especially around menstruation.
Ectopic pregnancy is a more urgent concern. It happens when a fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. The pain is typically sharp and one-sided, and it may come with vaginal bleeding, dizziness, or shoulder pain. This is a medical emergency that requires immediate care. Pelvic inflammatory disease, usually caused by a sexually transmitted infection, can also produce right-sided pelvic pain along with fever, abnormal discharge, and pain during sex.
Chest and Rib Area
Right-side pain that sits higher, near or under the ribs, isn’t always abdominal. Pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissue lining the lungs and chest wall, causes a sharp pain that worsens every time you breathe in. It often results from a respiratory infection like pneumonia or the flu. The pain stops or lessens when you hold your breath, which is a useful way to distinguish it from other causes. It can also spread to your shoulders or back.
Right-sided pneumonia can produce similar breathing-related pain along with cough, fever, and shortness of breath.
Muscle Strain vs. Internal Organ Pain
Not all right-side pain comes from inside the body. A strained intercostal muscle (the muscles between your ribs) or an abdominal muscle pull can mimic deeper problems. The key difference is in how the pain behaves and what accompanies it.
Muscle pain tends to be sharp, easy to pinpoint with a finger, and clearly triggered by specific movements like twisting, bending, or reaching. It may hurt to press on the area. Internal organ pain, by contrast, is often harder to localize. It feels more like a deep ache or squeezing sensation and can radiate to unexpected places like the back or shoulder. Organ pain also tends to come with other systemic symptoms: nausea, vomiting, changes in heart rate, sweating, fever, or changes in bowel habits. If you’re experiencing pain with none of those additional symptoms and it clearly worsens only with certain body positions, a muscular cause is more likely.
Less Obvious Causes
Shingles can produce burning or stabbing pain on one side of the torso for several days before any rash appears. This prodromal pain is easy to mistake for a kidney problem or muscle strain because there’s nothing visible on the skin yet. The rash, which appears as a band of red blisters, typically shows up a few days after the pain begins and stays confined to one side of the body.
Duodenitis, or inflammation of the first part of the small intestine, sits in the upper right abdomen and can cause a gnawing or burning pain that’s easy to confuse with a stomach ulcer. It’s often linked to the same bacterial infection (H. pylori) that causes ulcers.
Warning Signs That Need Urgent Attention
Certain combinations of symptoms signal that right-side pain needs immediate evaluation:
- Pain that started around the belly button and moved to the lower right, especially if it’s getting steadily worse over hours
- High fever with abdominal pain, which can indicate appendicitis, a kidney infection, or a ruptured organ
- Rigid, board-like abdomen that’s extremely painful to touch
- Persistent vomiting alongside severe pain
- Signs of internal bleeding, including dizziness, lightheadedness, rapid heartbeat, or fainting, particularly in women of childbearing age where ectopic pregnancy is possible
How Right-Side Pain Gets Diagnosed
When you seek care for right-side pain, imaging is typically the next step after a physical exam and blood work. Ultrasound is the first-line tool for evaluating gallstones, kidney stones, and urinary problems because it’s fast, radiation-free, and excellent at visualizing these structures. If the ultrasound doesn’t reveal a clear cause, a CT scan often follows. CT is particularly useful for suspected appendicitis and for getting a detailed look at the entire abdomen when the diagnosis is uncertain. In many cases, a patient with acute right-side pain will get an ultrasound first to rule out gallbladder disease, then a CT scan if the picture remains unclear.