I am stressed the fuck out.

I know because my Dentist told me so!

My teeth have really been bothering me for the last few weeks – mostly when I ate something sweet – so I figured that I must have a cavity lurking in there somewhere, but I couldn’t pinpoint where it could be.  One day my top right side would hurt, the next day would be my bottom left, and it seemed like the different quadrants of my mouth were on a scheduled rotation of pain.

Then the last few days have gotten noticeably worse* – I would freeze, pain radiating through my mouth whenever I bit into anything sweet, or anything salty, or anything cold, or anything hot, or anything…well, you get the picture.  When I could not longer take a sip of coffee without shooting pain, I decided it was time to call my Dentist.

As I sat in the waiting room, I was nervous – after so many years of neglect, I really try to take good care of my teeth, and I was mortified at the thought of multiple cavities.  Cavities that were, obviously, deep enough to be causing me this much pain.  There must even be some exposed nerves in there.

I bet I’m going to have to have another root canal!**

But once I settled into the chair and opened my mouth for examination, I was told that everything looked good – there were no cavities at all. 

I was asked if I was wearing the mouthguard I had been fitted with a couple of years ago, and I confirmed that I was.  Then he explained that I must be grinding my teeth so much and so hard that the nightguard isn’t enough, and that I must also be grinding or clenching my teeth throughout the day without realizing it.

Stress.

So he shaved down a couple of the teeth that were hitting pretty hard when I grind, and started to rub my jaw.  And then he moved to my temples.  And then he stuck his fingers in my mouth and, with his thumb on the outside by my jaw, he started pinching my cheek.

My dentist was giving me a massage!

An eye-watering, cringe-inducing, incredibly painful massage…but still!

So, now, I should be just about covered: I have a massage therapist to knead the tension out of my back, a thai massage therapist to stretch the tension out of my legs, an acupuncturist to poke the tension out of my wrists, a reflexologist to rub the tension out of my feet and a dentist to pinch the tension out of my face.  

It seems the only thing left to attend to is probably the part of me that needs it most…my brain.

How do you deal with stress?  It seems like I need all the help I can get, at this point!

*I am obviously more of a wait-and-see-if-it-gets-better-on-its-own kind of girl rahter than a run-to-the-doctor-at-the-first-sign-of-trouble kind of girl.  This allows for maximum whining time

**That would be lucky number seven