Facial Palsy and TMJD Clinic at Kyung Hee University
- Brianna Loftus
- Apr 3
- 2 min read
Facial palsy is one of about two dozen conditions that national health insurance pays for Traditional Korean Medicine treatments. The cause of facial palsy can vary and western medicine treatment is pretty minimal by their own admittance : eye drops for dry eyes that can't close, antibiotics or steroids if the cause is thought to be infectious or inflammatory, more recently botox injections are used for facial balance. So, not much.
I was able to spend time with two different doctors with facial palsy and TMJD clinics at Kyung Hee University, Dr. Lee Su-ji and Dr. Kim Yong-seok. Both doctors had daily four hour clinics where they saw dozens of patients at once. It was so amazing to see their clinics working like a well oiled machine thanks to the teams of nurses who would guide patients into a clinic and then remove needles and turn over the tables for the next round.
In addition to facial palsies and paralysis and TMJD, conditions treated in this area are: trigeminal neuralgia, facial tics, headaches, obstructive sleep apnea, tongue ties and cosmetic acupuncture.
Much of the treatments themselves were local treatments on the face using electro acupuncture and occasionally electric moxabustion pens. Radio frequency is often used to disrupt nerve pathways in TMJD in addition to being used for beauty treatments to stimulate collagen. This was also the only other department besides the Spine and Joint Center where I saw cupping being used. In cases that were excess or related to Wind Dr. Kim Yong-seok would cup patients on the upper back and the nurse would wait to remove the cups.
Research on facial palsy and TMJD
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