A patient came to my clinic. He had had ringing in the ear before. That had been good after some acupuncture treatments, but it came back.
 
In the case of ringing in the ear, I usually retain needles at the points located around the ear in addition to the whole body treatment, and at the end of the treatment, I leave a short needle at one of the points around the ear.
 
I did the similar treatment on him, but when he came back, he told me that his ear was good for just a few days. So I left a short needle at the different point from the previous treatment, but the result of the treatment was almost the same.
 
So I decided to leave a tiny ball on a sticker around his hip joint. Hip joint?
 
When he had come for ringing in the ear previously, it had been difficult to leave a needle around the ear because of the hair, so I had tried to use a point around the hip joint. This point had not been indicated for ringing in the ear, but I just had felt like it could be effective for the ear. And actually it had worked well.
 
But I found a good needle which could stay even in the hair so that I started to use the needle in the hair instead of the hip joint point.
 
He came back again in a week and this time he told me he didn’t notice ringing in the ear so much.
 
Hip joint for ringing in the ear?
 
Acupuncture is interesting.

​The patient had been coming to my clinic for light depression and lack of focus. One day he told me that he also had had a ringing in his left ear for a few years and we started the acupuncture treatment for the ringing in the ear as well.
 
The treatment was retaining needles at the acupuncture points specially for a ringing in ears located on the left side of the head in addition to the whole-body treatment.
 
The interval of the treatments was once a week until the 6th treatment and then every other week until the 10th treatment.
 
There was up and down about the condition of the ringing noise, but gradually decreased and since he said that he hadn’t noticed the ringing noise very much in his daily life at the 10th treatment, the series of treatment for a ringing in the ear ended.
 
I asked him about the noise in his ear when he came for his regular treatments, but it still seemed calm after that so that I didn’t give him the treatment for a ringing in the ear.

I’m treating a patient with hearing loss by acupuncture. She has had a hearing loss for a few years. She wants to talk with her grandchildren without trouble when they visit her.

I treated her 3 times for hearing loss. After the second treatment, she said that she could lower the volume of TV and could hear more clearly when she talked with her friend.
 
At the beginning, her left ear had weak hearing, but in the last treatment, hearing of her right ear was weaker. Hearing loss is an ear problem, but I’m not treating around ears though I treat around ears in the case of ringing in ears (tinnitus).
 
I hope that her hearing will be improved more by continuous treatments.

Cozy Acupuncture is located in Witch City Mall in Salem, MA, specializing in pain management such as knee pain, low back pain, sciatica, neck pain, shoulder pain, menstrual pain, etc.
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​One morning when 40 years old female called her daughter, she felt slight pain in her throat. In the after on the same day, she felt a little stronger pain in her throat when she drank water. After that, the pain in her throat occurred repeatedly.
 
One month after she started to feel the pain in her throat, she felt a severe pain in her left ear when she sneezed. The pain was like the inner ear was pierced by a lot of hot needles. The severe pain calmed down in 15 seconds. But when she swallowed saliva, the severe pain started again. She went to a otorhinologist (nose and ear doctor), but nothing abnormal was found and the doctor suggested the possibility of shingles. Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus and appears in a band on the skin. It can be triggered by stress or weakness of the immune system. She was prescribed with pain killer and antivirals, but there was no improvement. The cycle of the pain became shorter and she felt the pain every 1 minute even while sleeping. She was in a mentally tight spot due to the pain.
 
She had various kinds of tests in various hospitals, but the cause of the pain was not found. In the department of neurosurgery, MRI was taken but nothing was found and very strong pain killer was prescribed. The strong pain killer removed the pain but she started to feel strong tiredness. The cause of the strong tiredness was lowered liver function so she was unable to be prescribed with the strong pain killer any longer.
 
Then she was referred to a specialist of neurology in a hospital. Since MRI, CT or X-ray cannot image nerves mostly, various tools are used in neurology to check nerves. First, the brainstem was tested. If there is any abnormality in the brainstem, there should be some abnormality in the limbs. But there was no abnormality. After that, all the nerves that could be affected were checked. Trigeminal nerves were tested. Blinking shows sensitive reaction of trigeminal nerves. If the movement of blinking is slow, the abnormality of trigeminal nerves is suspected, but there was no abnormality. The last nerve not tested yet was glossopharyngeal nerve. MRI is unable to image nerves but MRI was taken again focusing on something around the glossopharyngeal nerve.
 
Fig. 1 is her actual MRI image. Only one side of the blood vessel by the glossopharyngeal nerve is thick. This was the cause of the severe pain. The disease was glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Hardening of the blood vessel located by the glossopharyngeal nerve occurs and the thickened blood vessel presses the glossopharyngeal nerve, causing a severe pain. She was released from the severe pain by the surgery to separate the blood vessel from the glossopharyngeal nerve.