Nearly 20 years ago, I had a patient who came to the clinic complaining of chronic face pain – dull, achy pain in his cheeks, jaw, and forehead that had started a few years earlier. His doctors tested him for every type of disorder but came up empty-handed. This face pain case review describes how a unique Chinese medicine treatment resolved his chronic face pain for good.
Face Pain Case Review
My new patient’s first treatment included acupuncture points on the face, arms, and legs. I selected face points local to his pain to circulate qi and blood in the areas of his discomfort. The acupoints on his arms and legs addressed organ imbalances designed to boost qi and blood circulation system-wide in his body, further supporting healing on his face.
After thirty minutes, I removed the needles and asked my patient to flip over and lay face down on the treatment table. I then applied Chinese cupping along both sides of his spine. My rationale for using cups on his back to treat face pain stemmed from the nature of the flow of Qi in the body. Qi circulates through 14 different channels (a.k.a. meridians). The Bladder meridian runs along both sides of the spine, over the top of the head, descending to the face. The Stomach channel travels through the temples, eyes, and jaw on the face.
My strategy was to activate Qi and blood circulation along the Bladder channel of the back to open up stuck energy along the Stomach channel in his face. Since all pain results from stuck Qi and blood, and since channels relate to and influence each other, improved circulation in the Bladder channel might resolve his stubborn, intractable face pain in the Stomach channel.
Chinese Cupping Technique
I applied cups to the right and left side of his spine, at the acupuncture points BL13, BL15, BL17, BL18, BL20, BL23, and BL25, essentially from his neck to lower back. Within a few minutes, pus began oozing out of the pores of his skin – thick, green, and yellow pus. This was not a typical cupping reaction. Cupping will often turn the skin red as it pulls heat from the body or purple, as the cups draw stagnant blood from the muscles to the surface of the skin. However, cupping does not usually extract pus from the body through the skin’s pores.
The unusual reaction documented in this face pain case review reflected an extreme case of phlegm blocking the channels, resulting in pain in the face. As soon as the cupping session was over, my patient reported that his face pain was gone – for the first time in years. The cupping, and its consequential removal of phlegm, had instantly resolved his facial pain.
Chinese Medicine Resolves Face Pain
When my patient returned the following week for a follow-up appointment, his face pain had not returned. I repeated the same treatment from the week before, and the cupping this time brought up almost no pus or fluid – there was none left to extract. A six-month phone check-in revealed that the acupuncture and cupping treatment had resolved his face pain for good.
It is odd to think that pus accumulation in the back would cause face pain, but the results described in this face pain case review speak for themselves. There is much in the human body that we do not understand, but Chinese medicine allows for exploring the possibilities through its understanding of channel and organ function.
Thinking Out of the Box
At Raleigh Acupuncture we often treat medical conditions that have not responded well to modern medicine. Years ago my partner, Jinmei Xu, wrote an article entitled, “Unusual Symptoms Resolved Best With Acupuncture“. Chinese medicine is well-suited for treating complex, chronic conditions because it has so many strategies for healing.
Next Steps
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What our Clients are Saying
My jaw was broken 20 years ago and never healed right. I had constant pain all the time. Finally tried acupuncture for a lark. Ended up getting rid of 90% of the pain. Couldn’t believe it. I highly recommend Raleigh Acupuncture Associates.
My sister recommended Raleigh Acupuncture for my TMJ, after no luck with other types of treatment. I was surprised and pleased to see that acupuncture helped. My jaw pain is gone after 6 treatments. No pain at all. I recommend this practice to anyone with TMJ.
My dentist damaged a nerve in my face that triggered terrible trigeminal neuralgia. The pain in my face was way more than 10 out of 10. I could not think, could not work, could not sleep. I truly thought my life was over. But thanks to Raleigh Acupuncture Associates I am 95% better. It took three months of treatment, but it was worth it. My regular doctor had no solution for me. His pain medicine did not work. I tried an $8000 procedure of laser cutting, and that did not work. But acupuncture DID work. I’m telling you, if you have trigeminal neuralgia in your face, come to these guys. I love them!
I woke up one morning and started getting these excruciatingly painful shooting electric pains on the left side of my face. My wife took me to the emergency room and they said I had trigeminal neuralgia. They gave me some pain medicine, but a nurse there suggested I try acupuncture. She had this pain once and it was cured by acupuncture. She gave me the name of Raleigh Acupuncture. When I explained the situation they took me in the same day. After just one treatment I started feeling better. They saw me every day for six days, at which point the pain was completely gone. What a life saver. I strongly recommend getting acupuncture for trigeminal neuralgia.