Toothache - Pressure Point Relief

Original Source: www.desmoinesdentalnews.com

G

oing to bed with or waking up in the wee hours with a toothache guarantees only one thing – no sleep for the rest of the night.

Of course, you can try painkillers. But when it gets to the stage where you can’t lie down on either side of your head…or you can’t lie down at all…you’re in trouble.

Toothaches come in various forms. They may be caused by inflammation of the gums around a particular tooth; inflammation of the dental pulp, and of course, from dental cavities within the teeth themselves.

The pain can be very mild. Just a certain tenderness around the gum at the bottom of the tooth, or a slight swelling. The pain may also shift, so that at one point it feels like it’s coming from the bottom of the mouth and then, a few minutes later, somewhere at the top. The pain could resemble an occasional pinprick or a slight pulsation that comes and goes.

And then there’s the “grinder”. The pain feels as though a very tiny carpenter has decided to renovate the deep inside of your molar and has been for the last several hours grinding away at the main structure without let up. It’s a “get-thee-to-the-hospital” level of pain.

A toothache must be seen after by a medical professional. Sometimes it’s a matter of ridding yourself of an infection through a course of antibiotics. At other times, the outcome if left alone may be more severe, and potentially dangerous.

You ask what the teeth have to do with the martial arts. True, Mike Tyson did try to introduce biting into the ring. Further afield in athletics, Luis Suarez did his part by introducing biting into soccer. The great biters though, martially speaking, come from the monkey systems of Kung Fu. If you’ve ever seen the incisors of an angry baboon you may appreciate how effective biting in self defense might be.

Original Source: hedgy.com

In martial arts, the pressure points we strike are also the pressure points we use to heal. And in the case of dulling down a toothache, there are quite a few. For the following points, gently probe in and around the suggested area until you find a tender point then stay with that point by gently pressing or rubbing in a close circular fashion for a while. Go back and forth between the points. Find which of these provide you with relief and stay with them.

GV 26 – 2/3 of the way between the top of the lip and the bottom of the nose.

CV 24 – in the depression between the chin and the lower lip

ST 3 – directly below the middle of the eye level with the bottom of the nose

ST 6 – the width of a finger above the angle of the mandible

GB 2 – in front of the intertragic notch on the posterior border of the condyloid process of the mandible

SI 19  – behind the condyloid process of the mandible in a depression when the mouth is opened

TW 17  – under the earlobe in a depression between the mastoid process and the mandible

Original Source: www.siyudy.com

LI 4  – in the web between the thumb and index finger in the middle of the second metacarpal bone

Li 5  – over the back of the wrist in between the tendons of the extensor pollicis brevis muscle and the extensor pollicis longus muscle

L 5  – in the elbow crease just to the radial side of the tendon of the biceps brachii muscle

ST 45  – just behind the lateral corner of the nail of the second toe

Please note: Tw 17, GB 2, Si 19 and Tw 21 can all be pressed at one time…thumb on Tw 17, finger tips on the rest.

Some additional quick remedies – clove oil, sea salt and peppermint oil.  And the one I purposefully believe in – garlic!