Photo by sethw / CC BY-SA 2.0

I was so distracted by my cold yesterday, that I forgot to mention I also have an intermittent toothache, all in addition to that constant headache I’ve had for almost two years. (Our anniversary is only 6 days away!) Anyway, I’m not dead yet, but the toothache rather annoys me on a philosophical level, which my other aches and pains have failed to do. The toothache only arrived after I had a decaying filling replaced three weeks ago, which I only did because I thought it would prevent a toothache. Irony, I hate you.

The tooth only hurts when cold water or hot coffee gets on it. Then it will ache for 20-60 minutes while I think, “Root canal, root canal, I really want a root canal.” Which just serves as proof that the pain drives me temporarily insane. The rest of the time it’s perfectly fine and I forget it’s even a problem. I’ve been back to the dentist twice now and he hammered on it and blew cold [...]

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One of the numerous remedies I tried for the case of the curious headache that would not go away was a mouth guard. I grind my teeth, just like my older brother and just like other members of my family. The fancy schmancy medical term for this is bruxism. There is no “cure,” but you can wear a plastic mouth guard at night that protects your molars from damage.

You can get an el cheapo night guard at any drug store, but since I had dental insurance I decided to use it and get the premium customized model from my dentist. To do this, he had to make a mold of my teeth which involved two trays of goopy gunk and a strong will to suppress the gag reflex. They then cast a model of my teeth from the impressions and made the mouth guard from that model. When I picked up the mouth guard, they also gave me the model since they don’t have room to store them all.

These days my teeth can be found [...]

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