Down to Nubs

So Redford took my mouth guard off my night stand again, and this time he ate it.  Not put a crack down the side like the last time, after which I brushed it with my electric toothbrush and popped it back in my mouth.  This time he ate it. I found a few little shards off plastic on the dog bed, but otherwise, as Anne Lamott would say, Sugar, Honey, it’s gone.

How could I not notice him eating it?  Shut up.

Earlier in the evening, I had dropped some ice, and ice is clear and crunchy too.  Course, ice doesn’t usually last 20 minutes, but Redford was quiet and occupied, and you don’t know how rare an occasion that is.

Anyhow, it’s gone.

That means I’ve been sleeping without a barrier between my upper and lower teeth for three nights.  Big deal, right?  Well, people have told me that when I don’t wear a mouth guard, they can hear me grinding my teeth.  Let me say that again:  they can hear me grinding my teeth.  Now I’ve tried during my waking hours to grind my teeth audibly and I CAN’T DO IT.  Go ahead, try it!  How hard is that?!

I’ve had a mouth guard since I was twelve.  Dentist-made ones, ones I bought at Dick’s Sporting Goods, soft ones, hard ones, ones that cover my top teeth, bottom teeth, both sets of teeth, ones that just sat between my back teeth.  None have helped with the headaches or the TMJ.  They certainly don’t stop you from clenching.  In fact, they encourage it.  If you have something between your teeth, the impulse is to bite it.  (Get  your minds out of the gutter, pervs.)  But mouth guards have stopped me from grinding my teeth, as one dentist put it, “down to nubs”.

Redford didn’t eat a $10 one I got off the Internet or a $20 one from Dick’s.  No, he ate the real kind.  The one  I had to go to a different dentist for because he made yet again a different kind for me to try but of course I had to get an exam and a full set of X-rays from him and that’ll be 800 please.

(By the way, I love how dentists’ office people never say the word ‘dollars’.  It’s always ‘800’, or for my root canal last year ‘a thousand’.  I always want to say, “Bananas?  Can I give you a thousand bananas?”)

19 thoughts on “Down to Nubs”

  1. did margo tell you her mouthguard story? she has a history of throwing it across the room in her sleep, for one thing. but the really funny story is that she was taking the mouthguard to her dentist for some touch-ups, and somewhere downtown while she was at the Farmer’s Market, it fell out of her pocket. She and a friend search the entire area, but could not find it. One WEEK later, walking back to her car, laden with produce, she looked down at the sidewalk and there it was. Seriously. Her mouth guard. She picked it up, took it home, sterilized the hell out of it, and is still using it. How bizarre is that?! Btw, sorry about your loss. Those suckers are expensive. I paid $300 dollars dollars dollars for my first one, which last 3 months before the dentist did work that made it not fit no how no way. Since then I’ve used CVS brand. 25 bucks.

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  2. bite WHAT when it is in your mouth?
    (sorry, couldn’t resist.)
    come here. my mouthguard was only 750 bananas. or was it beets?

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  4. Such a long shot but I’m desperate to find the hilarious Anne Lamott quote/story about Sugar, Honey, it’s gone. Can you steer me to the right book?

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