My Mouth Hurts

[written Monday, 11.28.11]

I spent a majority of my day at the dentist. Don’t worry. Nothing is wrong. But I did see my entire dental and medical history flash before my eyes this morning as I sat through mouth x-rays, realized my blood pressure was high, and wondered if I had cavities, gum issues, a fractured tooth, a tender root, and/or any of the other major dental issues one could have. I didn’t. But you know what I did have? A whole lot of stress.

A little back story:

When I was 24, I realized that I had high blood pressure when I was at the dentist. My hygienist took my blood pressure as a routine action and then refused to clean my teeth until I had gone to the doctor and had my blood pressure checked. Because the bottom number of my blood pressure—the one that measures the pressure of the heart at rest—was high, my doctor immediately put me on BP medicine. Thank you, parents for high blood pressure genes and thank you, anxiety, for living as a stress ball inside me.

A few years later, during another routine cleaning, my jaw almost locked open. Because of this, my dentist fit me with a bite guard to help me not clinch my jaw. I must admit that I’m not a faithful bite guard wearer…which is actually why I had to return to the dentist this afternoon.

After my cleaning this morning, I realized that I was clinching my jaw a lot and putting a lot of pressure on one particular tooth, thus causing it to ache sometimes. The simple solution? Wear my bite guard. But first, it needed to be adjusted.

As my dentist was doing the adjustment, I had the hardest time relaxing my jaw so that he could move it freely. I tried as hard as I could to relax—which sounds like an oxymoron—but I had a super hard time! I suddenly remembered my massage therapist saying, “Yeah, I know,” when I mentioned that I had a hard time relaxing my arm. I’m seeing a pattern here.

My arm is connected to my shoulder which is connected to my neck which is connected to my jaw…the muscles of all of which I evidently have trouble relaxing.

The sad thing? I thought that I’d begun to unwind from the major parts of the stress that I knew I had been carrying!

Sigh.

There is no uplifting point to this note. My mouth hurts. But my teeth are clean. I have no cavities or major dental issues. And I have an adjusted bite guard that will hopefully help me not clinch my teeth, thus helping relax my jaw muscles, thus helping me release some of the stress that I carry, thus helping lower my blood pressure a bit? [Okay. I realize that last one is a stretch, but…we can hope, right?

God, thank you for people who don’t get grossed out working in other people’s mouths.

Amen.