Treating Facial Pain or Trigeminal Neuralgia with Acupuncture.
Facial pain or Trigeminal Neuralgia is generally described as intermittent shooting pain or generalised intense pain of the face. It can be experienced as sudden, stabbing, severe, electric shock pain that can last from several seconds to more continuous pain.
Facial pain can be felt on the face, around the eyes, lips, scalp, nose or forehead and is often caused by interference of the trigeminal nerve of the face. The trigeminal nerve is one of the largest nerves in the head and it sends messages of pain, temperature, pressure and touch to the brain from the front and sides of the face.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has been treating pain conditions successfully for thousands of years. Acupuncture is an excellent way to reduce pain anywhere in the body and generally has a noticeable impact on the pain within a few moments on the table.
The balance method of acupuncture is an extremely effective means to reduce pain almost instantly without inserting needles directly into the painful area. For most facial pain we can use the area around the thumb or index finger and the feet.
One of the big benefits to this style of treatment would be that the painful area is allowed to rest without any needles being inserted into any sore or sensitive muscles in the face. Points are specifically chosen away from the painful area and skilfully selected to specifically relate to the area that is in pain.
In 2003 the World Health Organisation with the National Institute of Health listed Facial Pain as a condition which acupuncture is an effective treatment.
“Chronic facial pain, including craniomandibular disorders of muscular origin, also responds well to acupuncture treatments … Acupuncture may be useful as complementary therapy for this condition” Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of controlled clinical trials (2002) World Health Organisation.
There has also been positive case studies and research relating to the use of acupuncture in the treatment of pain, and trigeminal neuralgia such as:
“Acupuncture produced beneficial effects in the majority of patients in this series. Acupuncture should be considered as a safe therapeutic option in patients with Trigeminal Neuralgia, especially before invasive intervention is done.” Tapan K. Chaudhuri and Abhisek Ray. Medical Acupuncture. December 2008, 20(4): 231-237. doi:10.1089/acu.2008.0640.
Acupuncture for facial pain is side effect free, gentle and minimally invasive with the balance method being used on hands and feet to impact the face and trigeminal nerve. Most people experience immediate relief using this special method of Acupuncture with reduction in their pain or symptoms associated with their facial pain over a standard course of treatment.
Simon is available for appointments Monday, Friday and Saturday at Mornington Chinese Medicine Ph:59736886