TMJ needs a village!

Buccal Massage - hurts so good!

My jaw hurts constantly.

No surprise. Stress leads to clenching and grinding at night, and when I am traveling more than normal, sleeping poorly, or overly agitated, it gets so much worse. I have been on a mission to find ways to get relief outside of the typical remedies.

The masseter muscle in your jaw is the muscle that you clench with. It also happens to be one of the strongest muscles in your body for its size. Things like night guard protect your teeth but do not address the reason for the tension. When you clench your jaw night after night, your masseter muscle never fully lets go. The constant contraction of the muscle makes it thicker, builds knots and creates tight fascia inside the muscle. This chokes off the blood flow and locks the tension in.

So today, to combat the Sunday Scaries, I am going to see my amazing integrative esthetician, Karena. She is a miracle worker.

Her approach is structural, not just topical. Instead of only treating the surface, she gives the body the space to improve naturally, releasing deep structural clenching, postural blockages, and facial fascia patterns. It is where facial fascia work meets internal, holistic care, and the payoff is both long-term youthful skin and healing from within.

One of the most amazing treatments she provides is buccal massage. Buccal massage is done from inside the mouth. She works the muscles intra-orally, reaching the masseter and the deep facial fascia around the jaw that you simply cannot get to from the outside. It releases years of tension that clenching and grinding build up in places no surface treatment can touch.

Working from inside the mouth is the only way to reach the muscle and fascia in the jaw. The direct pressure breaks up the knots, which enables the blood flow to return and the muscle to lengthen and release.

The first time I had this experience, I was in tears. Not because of the pain (it is painful) but because a place that has experienced so much stress and pain since I was a child was finally feeling touch. I was finally feeling release in a place that has been the source of trauma and tension. I got very warm, I cried, and as my jaw released, I could feel years of deeply held clenching unfold. I have found this treatment similar to a deep release in your hips, especially for women. Karena explained this was a very normal reaction. When a muscle braced for years finally releases, the nervous system drops out of fight or flight, and stored emotion tends to come with it. Both your hip and jaw clench under stress and hold it for years, so releasing one is often felt in the other.

I have been seeing Karena for almost a year, and her facial fascia release and buccal massage have been miraculous for me.

In addition to this modality, I have been going to acupuncture once a week that includes a focus on my jaw. Leveraging the ancient healing of acupuncture in my jaw has helped tremendously, and combining these two practices has dramatically changed my pain and tension levels. My acupuncturist, Gabby, is a deeply knowledgeable practitioner who combines Chinese medicine and acupuncture to heal your body from deep within. I am getting deep support for this phase of my life into perimenopause to ease the stress, which helps the jaw as well.

Acupuncture triggers your own endorphins and acts on the nerve that runs your jaw and face, quieting the pain at its source and relaxing the muscle. In a 2024 clinical trial, nearly 87 percent of patients treated with acupuncture for jaw pain saw their pain drop by at least half, compared with 60 percent given a placebo treatment. The jaw joint is also full of estrogen receptors, so as hormones drop through perimenopause it gets more inflamed and more pain sensitive. It’s a big reason TMJ hits women far more than men. Treating my hormonal shifts treats the jaw issues as well!

It is a bonus that she also does facial acupuncture for bringing out your natural glow and skin and muscle youth. That is next on my list to try.

The final step I have explored is Botox into my masseter. The effects were almost instant. While my jaw was already feeling improvement, the Botox helped soften the tension that keeps grabbing deep inside the muscle. Botox blocks the signal that tells the masseter to fire, so it can’t clench as hard. The grip eases within a week or two, and because the muscle finally rests, it softens and slims over the next months.

Hoping some of my experiences might help someone having the same issues. Look in your local area for providers that may offer similar services. I have linked my esthetician and acupuncturist below to give you a starting point. Look for a holistic esthetician who does buccal and fascia work, a licensed acupuncturist who treats the jaw, a provider you trust for masseter Botox. None of it is a one-time fix; it builds over time, the way the tension did.

I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, just things that have worked for me. Talk to a provider you trust.

https://pointsforwellness.com/

https://www.skinhairhealth.com/

https://www.ritualaesthetic.com

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Sources:

Acupuncture for jaw pain (the 87% trial): Liu L, Chen Q, Lyu T, et al. “Effect of acupuncture for temporomandibular disorders: a randomized clinical trial.” QJM, 2024;117(9):647–656

Estrogen receptors in the TMJ and why TMD affects women more, especially around menopause: Decisions in Dentistry, Effects of Estrogen on TMD and Prevalence of TMD in postmenopausal women, PubMed