I woke up two days ago with terrible jaw pain. I don’t grind my teeth, but I am a clencher. I must have been clenching my jaws all night, because I woke up with terrible pain in my upper right jaw, which radiated all the way across to my front teeth. I was miserable. I kept touching and pushing on it, which really didn’t help. I barely made it through eating my mushy oatmeal that morning because it hurt to open my mouth wide.

When I got to my office, I had about 40 minutes before my first patient so I decided to give myself an acupuncture treatment. And boy am I glad I did. I put in four needles- two in my hand and two in my leg and sat comfortably in a chair and read for about 25 minutes. During that time, my deep, achy jaw pain went from a 9 out of 10 down to a 3 out of 10. Awesome! 

I knew I had a busy day, so I thought, what else can I do to make myself more comfortable? Ear seeds. I put two ear seeds in my right ear- one seed for upper jaw pain and one seed for wisdom teeth (which was around the area where my pain was the most intense).  I still have the ear seeds in because they are helping a lot. I usually leave ear seeds in for 2-5 days. It’s like taking my acupuncture treatment with me wherever I go.

So when people tell me that they have TMJ or that they clench or grind their teeth, I tell them I can help. Acupuncture can help- and I don’t need to put any needles in your face or jaw. Double awesome!

Absolutely!  Especially if I get sick or injured. I have used acupuncture on myself to treat headaches, a broken toe, the flu, back pain, sore muscles, PMS, stress, an eye infection, pulled ligaments in my thumb, acid reflux… and so many more things. I seriously keep an acupuncture travel kit and acupuncture needles in my car at all times.

I usually use ear seeds or do auricular acupuncture first. They are usually my “go-to”  before I move onto other acupuncture points on myself.

One time I pulled a muscle in my lower back. Less than an hour later I knew I wasn’t going to be able to “walk it off” so I opened my acupuncture needles. I chose two powerful acupuncture points on my head that are extremely helpful for low back strains. I put the needles in and walked around my house for about 20 minutes. (I left them in only for 20 minutes because my family was freaking out about me walking around the house with needles in my head). Every few minutes, I would gently bend forward and move my lower back and I could tell that pain was going away.

When I removed the needles, I noticed that my back was already feeling 80% better. Super cool. I took it easy the rest of the day, laid on a heating pad and gave myself another acupuncture treatment the next day. Any tightness and achy feeling  in my back was gone. Again, super cool.

Because of the style of acupuncture I do,  I didn’t have to needle my low back and I still got incredible relief.