Acupuncture never ceases to astound me.
It’s helped recover from a skiing accident, get over a fear of water, recooperate from a two-week bike trip and even assuaged the anxiety of a presentation at work. In each instance I had my doubts, but it’s proven effective.
I can now verify that it’s good for dental pain.
Last Friday I endured a 3.5 hour drilling session to remove an old filling on one of my back molars. It was positively brutal.
For nearly a week since I’ve had pain and headaches. I even stayed home from work with a migraine, the first time I’ve called in sick since I started full-time at Marquette in October.
The other day I went back to the dentist for even more work. They attempted to numb me up, but it wasn’t working. Again and again my dentist applied more and more powerful anesthesia. Half my face was completely frozen, but any contact with my tooth still caused searing pain.
Finally, unable to make any actual progress, my dentist told me to simply come back in another week. The muscles in my jaw were just clenched too tight. I’ve been grinding my teeth at night, either in response to stress or maybe just the dental disturbances. And this has caused a resistance to the anesthesia, along with brutal headaches.
Trust me, I have spent way, way, way more than my fair share of time at the dentist. And for all the root canals, crowns and soccer field injuries I’ve experienced, the local anesthetic has never failed to take effect. This was just weird.
Meanwhile, the pain and headaches persisted. It was especially sore and achy at that point right under and below the jaw that connects to the skull.
That’s when I visited Jennifer Bertram.
Jen gave me a relaxing treatment with needles in my face, jawline, arms, legs and feet. As the needles took effect, I could feel my whole face un-clench, un-scrunch and un-furrow. Finally.
Oddly enough, it also felt like someone was pinching me at a point right below my left toe. Just that spot.
After she took out the needles, Jen told me she was going to push some of my pressure points. She hit a few in my palms and arms — which I definitely felt — and then pushed down on that one spot on my foot just below the big toe.
@##**!*SFJK#$@!E!!
That. One. Hurt.
"What the hell was that?!" I asked. "Did that point correspond to anything?"
"That was your TMJ point," she said.
TMJ — that’s Temporomandibular Joint, not the TV or radio station — was exactly what was most bothering me. That’s what she was trying to fix through that pressure point.
I did some highly scientific Google research when I got back home, and sure enough, this article says "some of the most powerful points to treat TMJ are located near the big toe."
That’s so crazy.
But what’s even more astounding is that, for the first time in almost a week, my headache is gone. Finally.
Don’t miss this week’s Bartime Column for the inside scoop on a gem of a watering hole in Mequon.
