It’s amazing how our bodies work. In particular, our energy. The use of Energy Medicine and Yoga for pain management helped me recently when I had 4 molars extracted. The two lower ones were ‘hooked’, where the root did not grow straight, it was hooked under/around my jaw bone. While the mild sedative and freezing helped a bit, and I used Energy Medicine and Yoga-in particular yoga breathing (pranayama), to help calm my body and mind during the procedure.
I could feel the dentist pulling the first tooth. Moving it back and forth to loosen it. I could hear it tear away and decided that if I was going to get through 3 more extractions, I’d better calm down. I didn’t want to stress out my body and carry that into the next days of healing ( I have a studio to run, and classes to teach, so being laid up for more than 4 days is not an option). So I did what I knew best: breathed deeply and did some energy work. I knew my body was stressing, even though I could barely feel it, so I held my triple warmer and spleen points by crossing my arms, one hand held my side rib cage and the other hand held the top of the opposite elbow. I managed to tune into my deep, rhythmic breathing and kept thinking, “Just let go. Let him take it. Just let go”. I gave my tooth permission to release, all the while repeating the mantra. I would switch holding the opposite rib/elbow combination every few minutes to keep the Triple Warmer meridian from over acting and taking energy from spleen meridian. Triple Warmer meridian is responsible for ‘flight or fight’ so i knew I had to hold these points. When the doctor took a break, I stole this time to do a triple warmer smoothie by tracing from my temple to behind my ears (as if I was smoothing the hair behind my ears) while breathing deeply. I also wanted to make sure my energy was running the right way so I tapped my Kidney 27 point under my collar bone and my thymus (tarzan thump) and spleen (side ribs). He was back. The last tooth was a challenge! He spent a lot of time wiggling it (more like yanking it) back and forth and I felt like my jaw was going to unhinge! I felt my heart racing, and that made me concentrate even more on my breath, the Triple Warmer and Spleen Hold and my Mantra: Just let it go. The dentist rested again. He took a phone call and I could hear the patient was not so happy, and he was stressing out while he was speaking to them. I did not want this negative energy to transfer into my energy or my treatment so I quickly Zipped Up my Central Meridian and imagined a protective ‘egg’ around me so that his energy would not affect me. When he came back into the room and continued the extraction, he said he could not believe how calm I was (compared to the phone call he just had) and that I was his best patient and at the same time the most difficult extraction. I told him I was doing Yoga and holding points. He asked me if I could show him the points because he couldn’t believe that I wasn’t either crying or smacking him for the pain I was going through…or was I?
Every day for me is a gift when I can tap into energy and yoga to calm myself, to feel happy or to reduce pain. I hope my experiences help you. Namaste










