My Dentist Recommends Yoga

Yeah, you read it right. :-P

During my regular cleaning, I told my dentist about the faint and non-localized jaw pain I've been having. After a careful check on the left side for cavities, he told me my hunch that I'd been clamping my jaw at night again was correct. I do that when I'm stressed.

He said there were definite signs. Not chipped teeth or extra bone growth, thankfully, which are two of the things that can happen. And I'm not having joint trouble like the other times this has gotten bad. But the signs are there.

You see, when you clamp your teeth, your tongue tenses up and flattens against the roof of your mouth, pressing against your teeth. If you do this often, the lactic acid can be trapped along the edges, discoloring and reforming the tissue.

"So my tongue is striped?"

"Yes, your tongue is striped. Actually, it's more like... your tongue is... fluted!"

"Scalloped?"

"Yes, scalloped."

"Huh!"

So he asked me if I'd ever done yoga, and thinks learning some physical relaxation techniques would really help the clenching. I'd actually been concidering it, so I think I'll look into getting some at home stuff, since my schedule is so erratic.

Especially because my jaw isn't the only thing I've been clenching.

I've been waking up with my hands balled into tight fists. And it's starting to really affect my typing and manual dexterity. My hands hurt, my wrists hurt, and sometimes my forearms hurt. I'm going to make a doctor's appointment tomorrow, I think. This blog is taking much longer than it should. And sadly, it will be the last one I write for a while.

I have made a resolution. No more blogs until at least Monday. No IMs over the weekend. No responding to e-mail unless it's a must. I'm really going to miss you guys. :-( But typing is how I make a living right now, and I need to save it for work until this gets better.

I hope to get this worked out soon. Until then...

Does anyone have a yoga mat I could borrow?