If you've seen a crunchy baby, you've most likely seen an amber teething necklace. Crunchy moms put these necklaces on their babies so that you can identify a crunchy baby from a distance.
Amber teething necklaces are actually pretty amazing and this chewy mommy not only uses one for baby G (who is currently 3 months old), but I wear one myself. I will write up a better review for one on a baby when we get more into teething, this post is about the one I wear.
Wait, adults can wear one too? Hell yeah you can!
I have bad teeth. Like really really bad teeth. I should get them taken care of but I'm broke and without dental insurance. My teeth have bothered me off and on for YEARS, becoming much worse while pregnant. When I was pregnant with S (now 6 years old) it was horrible. And the only thing you can take while pregnant is like one Tylenol. If you've ever been in real pain and tried taking ONE Tylenol you know that you might as well take nothing. So 6 years ago I suffered through 9 months of dental pain that I easily would have traded for labor pains, no joke. I actually made that comment in the middle of labor to my husband.
So when the pain started to get worse during my pregnancy with G I did what I had done before, complained. And cried. And complained some more. I 'm sure I was a real delight to be around. It wasn't until about 6 months in that I started to research amber for the baby.
From Hazelaid's website:
"Amber is fossilized tree resin. As it warms with body heat, Baltic amber (mined near the Baltic Sea) releases an oil containing succinic acid. Absorbed into the skin, succinic acid works like a natural Ibuprofen, blocking pain and reducing inflammation. To function well, it must be worn close to the source of pain.
Note that it's an alkalinizing acid (like lemon juice) so it won't add to your body's acidity, and may actually slightly lower it. Baltic Amber has some of the highest concentrations of succinic acid found in nature.
Commonly known as 'teething jewelry' in Europe, Baltic amber jewelry has been a natural remedy for pain relief for hundreds of years."
Now I consider myself to be pretty skeptical about things like this. If there isn't research to back it I usually assume its BS and move on. When I tried to find research to support these claim I couldn't really find anything. What I did find was TONS of person accounts of these things being life savors. Most of the blogs and message boards I came across were for teething, but when I saw they come in adult sizes too I figured why not.
So I ordered my necklace from hazelaid.com. I just picked one that I thought looked pretty and I wouldn't mind wearing everyday. Especially if it didn't work, I wanted it to still be something I would wear. The cost was $27.95, which honestly for me is more than I spend on jewelry, but at this point I was desperate for some kind of relief.
So with great skepticism I put it on. I had read that it takes a few days to "build up" in your system so even though I still had pain that day I kept it on. When I was still in pain the next day I figured it wasn't going to work. I'm sure I complained about the money I had wasted. But I kept it on because if nothing else, it was pretty. Then I started to notice a change. The pain was gone. I still had some sensitivity, but only with hot or cold and it never stayed around for long. I still didn't want to say it was the necklace though. Sometime I would go through periods of a few days or even weeks where it wouldn't hurt so bad.
Days turned in to weeks and weeks in to months. G was born and I finally admitted that maybe this thing actually works. I've now been wearing the necklace for about 6 months. Beside the occasional sensitivity i have had no pain. It's the longest I've gone without pain in 10 years. It's amazing.
hazelaid.com is giving Chewy Mommy readers a 10% discount! Head over to the Chewy Mommy Facebook Page to get the code
