Teeth and Jaw Pain

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!