I started going to a new dentist when we moved to our new home – though not right away. I had stopped going to my prior dentist since it was a) now far away and b) the hygienist was so rough on me that my head would ache the rest of the day. Also, the dentist was dismissive of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, new town, new dentist. And this one was only a few minutes away. At the first appointment they noted my teeth were being worn down – which correlated with my morning headaches and sore jaw. The dentist recommended that I get a bite guard to wear at night so I got measured for that. With a device the size of an old TV remote they shoved in my mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got the guard – which was conveniently not covered by my insurance – and have been wearing it every night and cleaning it every morning.\u00a0 It frequently makes me gag and some nights it has fallen out while I sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The worst part is that it\u2019s no longer doing the job 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At my appointment this past week, the overly chatty hygienist – seriously, it\u2019s non-stop – was a little rougher on me with the picks and floss. She was even rough with me on the polishing. I kept wincing in pain, but short of slapping her I\u2019m not sure I could have gotten her to stop. No cavities, at least. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the dentist came in, I told her my concerns about the guard. I was having bad headaches again in the morning and a sore jaw – even with the bite guard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She seemed concerned and poked around in my mouth for a few minutes. Which included the only part of the whole experience that wasn\u2019t miserable – she used a piece of gauze to get a good grip on my tongue to move it around and it was so silly it made me giggle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result was that\u2026they couldn\u2019t do anything for me except give me a referral to a specialist. Also close by, conveniently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the referral was to treat me for TMJ – temporomandibular joint disorder. Which I got diagnosed when I was a kid and told just stop chewing gum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The morning after the appointment, I woke up so sore and with a headache that lasted hours. Which is as clear an indication that I need to make an appointment as I\u2019m going to get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I dunno what I\u2019m dreaming about, but it\u2019s apparently stressing me out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I started going to a new dentist when we moved to our new home – though not right away. I had stopped going to my prior dentist since it was a) now far away and b) the hygienist was so rough on me that my head would ache the rest of the day. Also, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3384,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions\/3384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}