You say Bruxism, I say Owww
I grind my teeth. My father used to and it was the most disgusting sound I had ever heard. Perhaps ten years ago, I started grinding my teeth in my sleep. I had long hair then and for some reason when I ground my teeth I would plow my fingers through my hair, and when I hit knots, it would wake me. I was grinding my teeth a lot once, when I was very stressed at work — not by the work but by the situation at that company. The grinding stopped the day I resigned, and I took notice. It was gone for a few years. Then about five years ago it started again. It wakes Herb, who would wake me. He’d just tell me I was grinding my teeth, I’d wake up, relax, and that was the end of that for the night. (The same goes for his snoring — once, when I was about to pinch his nose I just spoke to him and it worked — ha, I thought, one point for non-violence!) It worried me, though, so I did some research, and started taking complex B vitamins, a multi-vitamin and some calcium-magnesium. I thought it was worth the fifteen bucks, and I could afford wasting that much for a glimmer of hope. Lo and behold, it worked! I’ve been taking vitamins since, and have only started grinding my teeth again when I’d forget about taking them religiously every day. Victory was mine. Or so I thought. And I was feeling quite proud of myself — done my research, found and tried treatment, cured myself, hurray.
Except that… With the tibia operation coming soon, I made a point in January to be very diligent about taking my vitamins. I take a bunch of them too, and can boast not having had a cold or flu once in three years, so I’ve effectively turned from a scorner of vitamins to a somewhat doubtful, somewhat convinced believer. The night before the surgery and the night of it, I slept poorly. I wasn’t the one getting cut up, but still. The next day I brought Herb home and that night was horrible. He was in excrutiating pain and he had a high fever. We both slept in fits of half an hour or so. Since then our sleep patterns have improved, but… but. I have started grinding my teeth again, and it wakes Herb up many times a night. He wakes me, asks me to stop, I do, I go back to sleep and I start again. It’s gotten to the point where he has to get up and enjoy his vb-induced insomnia. Not the best thing to recuperate. I’m kind of at a loss here. Meditation and relaxation? Nice and fine but these days when I hit the pillow, there’s no time to count sheep. Seeing a doctor? Have you met me? The only times that helps me is when I have something definite, bronchitis or something. When it’s vague, say like a knee tendonitis, they do squat (oh, but I do get the side-effects of anti-inflammatories, if not the benefits. Joy.). Seeing my dentist would probably be wise, but he can just see the damage. I’m not seriously considering finding one of those plastic mouth guards and sleeping with it. I don’t know what else to do.
Last night I woke up and Herb was watching tv on the couch because I’d woken him once too often. This morning I was beat. When the Kid left I laid on the couch with an incredible jaw-induced headache. The fatigue, I guess, was caused by multiple awakenings throughout the night. I slept two more hours and woke up fine. But we can’t go on like this for very long. I’m really annoyed at it all, because yes, I do have a lot on my plate right now, being the only functionnal adult here, but it’s not that bad, really. I’m not that stressed these days. I’m working and loving it, I’m paying overdue stuff, I’m finally feeling in control of things, a feeling that usually lowers my stress-level by a factor of a thousand. So what else? Unspoken frustrations? Yeah I have those. I brew them until they are ripe and can be expressed in an appropriate context (convalescence is not one), in a conducive-to-solving tone. That’s the way I deal with frustration, and it works well. I doubt that it would push me over the line all of a sudden. So I’m left puzzled and wondering.
