Pain, Pain, Go Away!

There's a lot of talk now about how factors besides genes and current diet affect health and weight: the health of your mother when you were a fetus, your diet as a child, stress, and environment. Another is wear and tear. A few years ago when I fell off my bike and broke a tooth and knocked two others out of place, my dentist said that the two knocked out of place would likely need a root canal someday because of the injury. It could be two weeks, it could be two years, he said. Now, nearly three years later, the canine that was injured is abscessed.  Between being lethargic (doing nothing but watching Netflix when I got home), wearing my winter coat when everyone else was in shirtsleeves, and having an odd appetite (I've been living mostly on Quest bars this past month), I should have known I was sick. But I have a high threshold of pain. Finally, my face swelled up Friday morning and I made an appointment with my oral surgeon--the one who did my dental implant and g...

The roaming pain should have been my first clue that my mouth wasn't hurting from newly replaced fillings. As soon as I realized it was TMJ pain, I followed advice from old TV ads for pain pills: "Take at the first sign of pain." They were right--nip it in the bud and tension can't turn into spasms, which turn into pain, which turns into more tension. All I've taken is aspirin and ibuprofin. I've also avoided long practice sessions playing the recorder. (I could say I'm a purist about playing baroque music, but truth to tell, a clarinet is really hard to play. I've tried.) I also avoid coffee when it bothers me, which is as intermittent as my TMJ pain. My parents are still roped in red tape and I have nothing but nail clippers and a screwdriver. Since their credit union wouldn't accept their power of attorney, I whipped up a new one and brought a notary public to their nursing home. Even with some practice, my mother couldn't drive her new...

I've run into a problem with Atkins induction: my brand new shorts are now so loose on me that I can get them on without unbuttoning them. Truly, two days ago, nothing in my usual size fit. Cue the sappy violin music. Having to have your clothes taken in isn't the worst problem. What about dental surgery, though? Back in my Body for Life days, I ate a lot of carbohydrate and ended up with a bunch of cavities, a few of them at the gumline of my bottom front teeth. As much as I brushed and flossed, I constantly had plaque on my teeth back then. Even though I haven't had any tooth decay since starting LC, the gumline there (where my old dentist had to remove gum tissue to put in a filling) has receded and I've had bone loss. Gum tissue doesn't stick to fillings, so it just keeps receding. To avoid any further bone loss, my oral surgeon (the one who gave me my dental implant a few years ago after an accident) grafted some tissue from the roof of my mouth to the gum. ...

"You might want to read The China Study ." Good lord, there's someone still recommending that book after it was debunked by an English major and picked apart by Michael Eades and Chris Masterjohn ? Recommended by someone who works in a dentist's office, no less--where they're supposed to tell you to avoid carbage? Yet the dental hygienist did today. Maybe she was worried about business slowing down. Maybe she hadn't heard that at least two of its main critics got a mouthful of cavities on vegan or vegetarian diets. I didn't have any cavities, sensitive gums or other issues that a little more flossing wouldn't fix, and told her that I quit getting cavities after I started a low-carb diet. I added that since I'm from a family full of diabetes, that's another reason to be on a low-carb diet. "Well, if your diet isn't working for you, read The China Study. " I wasn't about to argue with a vegan holding a pick in my mouth. ...

This past month or so, I've had TMJ headaches in the morning, along with some mild stomach issues and acne the past week or so. I think it's muscle memory from years ago, back when I wore a night guard for TMJ pain. Since getting my braces off and getting dental implant in early June, I've been wearing an upper retainer at night. When I wear it to bed, it reminds me of the old upper retainer I used to wear when I was grinding my teeth some years ago after a car wreck. I think I've started grinding my teeth at night again. I wasn't grinding my teeth just before I got my implant, when I was wearing a retainer during the day. I'm not grinding my teeth now, wearing my retainer after dinner and before bed, as my orthodontist recommended. Since I haven't worn my retainer for a few nights, my headaches and neck pain are gone. My skin is clearing up, too. (Inflammation can become systemic and affect other parts of the body.) ***** The toe I stubbed a month ...

We know that foods you can't tolerate can cause inflammation in parts of the body outside the GI tract. But can inflammation in other parts of the body cause inflammation in the GI tract? I'm starting to think it's possible. This morning, I was walking my dog when the cause of my recent TMJ problems and headaches struck me: it was from walking my dog. Molly's so strong that she pulled my mother around in a wheelchair when Mom was in rehab a few years ago. I've tried to get her to walk without pulling, to no avail. When she pulls, I have to pull back and it makes me tense my neck and jaw. Molly has her own treadmill, which I bought when I had this problem before, and henceforth she'll just have to stay on it if she wants to walk. Molly on her treadmill, not the Iditarod. She could have been a contender. What does this have to do with stomach aches? Lately, my stomach has hurt and nothing seems to digest well. I haven't tried any new foods lately; in ...

My mom is back to normal, able to walk a little with a walker and doing a little cooking. Perhaps because her recent infection is gone and she isn't eating any more hospital food, her blood sugars have gotten low enough that she's decided to reduce her insulin dose. My TMJ pain has been acting up. But last weekend, a friend invited me to her restorative yoga class, and the next day, for the first time in weeks, I didn't need any aspirin. I'm planning to take her class on a regular basis. I had some anxiety that's now gone. I've always been good on the phone, and good on the Internet, but tended to get kind of freaky in person. I was the weird girl in The Breakfast Club. The anxiety defied all reason and most experience. And yet it just evaporated over the past couple weeks. Why? I quit all dairy except butter around two months ago and I'm finally finished healing from my bike wreck. Those are the only things I can think of that happened recently. There...

Between severe episodes of TMJ, an oncoming cold and a mountain of work, I was tired and miserable this time last night. Thank goodness I didn't use any common sense, but, as Tom Naughton would put it, used my functioning brain. Fifty thousand IU of vitamin D last night strangled the cold in its cradle by mid-morning today. A few doses of Umcka Cold Care probably helped. My TMJ is back under control. On the assumption that my roaming TMJ pain was from a tension, pain and spasm cycle spiraling out of control, I started taking ibuprofin every few hours. Some extra magnesium might have helped, too. It's needed for proper muscle function, and you can burn through more than usual when you're under a lot of stress. Vitamin D is a natural anti-imflammatory, so it might have helped as well. The TMJ pain started Saturday night after I missed lunch, missed a dose of ibuprofin and worked at the office for a few hours after the heat shut off. I don't do well skipping m...

The past two days have seen a return of my TMJ problems, as severe as I had in 2007 after a car wreck. I've been trying all sorts of things to help, but the only thing so far that puts a dent in the pain is ibuprofin. The odd thing is, the site of the dental implant is tender, but feels fine. The teeth that were tender from being in braces feel fine. The agonizing pain wanders around my jaw joint, lower jaw, ear and sinus passages on my right side. It feels like a needle without anesthetic, except when the pain isn't there. I'm wondering if it could be someting a neurosurgeon described to me many years ago: tension leads to pain, which leads to spasms, which leads to tension, and so on. If that's the case, the best thing would be to take the ibuprofin at the first sign of a twinge of pain. I also feel like I'm getting a cold. Per the SWAMP protocol , I took 50,000 IU of vitamin D a few hours ago and already feel better. I took a chance having surgery so close t...

Falling off a bike, falling on your face, fracturing and spraining an arm, breaking a tooth and knocking two others loose sounds terribly painful. I certainly looked bad afterward: a lot of strangers in stores, on the bus and even on the street saw my black and blue face and arm in a sling and asked me what happened. At the urgent care center; I rated my pain a 4 out of 10 as long as I held my arm still. But 4 out of 10 isn't horrible pain. The bottle of Vicodin I got that day is still in the bag, unopened. My arm wasn't that badly injured--not as bad as my cousin's when she tripped over her dachshund and broke both of her wrists. And my jaw, despite landing on it and still having a bump on my chin, wasn't fractured or broken. Could be I'm a tough old bird--I'm descended from bull riders, homesteaders and blacksmiths. But I think diet has helped. I know that changing my diet to low-carb, taking vitamin D and later adopting the cavity healing diet made my t...

Back in mid-March, my last dentist told me I needed a bunch of fillings. I declined to get them, embarking on a cavity-healing diet instead . Today, I saw a new dentist--the one my best friend saw when she lived here in Colorado. Since he never gave her a filling, I assume he's not a drill-and-fill eager beaver. The 16 x-rays he took (yes, sixteen) didn't show decay on the teeth the last dentist wanted to fill. He also said I had a good jaw and more than enough room for all my wisdom teeth--something he said he rarely sees. As he went about cleaning my teeth as if my mouth were the Sistene Chapel, he remarked that my teeth didn't seem sensitive to cold despite some roots showing. Yes, I've observed that too: my teeth are no longer sensitive to temperature or vinaigrette, as they once were. And my TMJ problems and nighttime tooth grinding unexpectedly disappeared since I started the cavity healing diet. So even though Dr. Michelangelo (not his real name) insisted that...

A couple of unexpected consequences have occurred with my new, (mostly) lacto-paleo, high-nutrient diet. My TMJ has almost disappeared. Let me tell you how my case of TMJ came about. It was a Sunday night in November 2006. I was on my way to a dance when an SUV came flying out of the Walgreens parking lot and broadsided my car on the driver's side. Once I stopped my car (which was totaled), the teeth on the right side of my mouth felt like they'd shifted from being clenched so hard. A few months later, the pain in my jaw was so bad that it kept me up nights. I couldn't fall asleep on my right side. Splint therapy helped, but as recently as last October after a dance workshop weekend , my jaw was painful for weeks afterward. So, why didn't I just stop clenching my jaw? When I realized I was doing it, I did, as far as I was able. But it's kind of like telling someone to stop having a tension headache. Things like relaxation, pain relievers, massage and a...

Years ago, I had suffered such bad and frequent headaches that I saw a doctor--something I rarely did. He asked me what my complaint was, I said it was headaches, and he referred me to a hospital to get a $700 scan. Not having $700 or health insurance, the headaches continued. I've since read that some doctors get a referral fee from hospitals when they send patients there. I suppose that even making a pretense of trying to diagnose the cause of my headaches might have cost him his kickback. I've since found five causes of my headaches, though I doubt anything would have turned up on an MRI. Sinus pressure. Sinus headaches are behind the eyes, in the cheeks and sometimes in the upper teeth. I take Sudafed PE for these, as often as directed. Acupressure at the points beside my nostrils helps, too. TMJ. This can feel like a sinus headache. If relaxing my jaw for a few minutes helps, I know it's at least partly from carrying tension there. I put in my splint, take ibuprofin, ...

Four days later, I got back in the dentist's chair. My gums, lymph glands and chin were swollen, even though I was taking antibiotics. "What happens if the tooth is still infected?" I asked with a pineapple-flavored swab in my mouth. "We'd do a temporary filling and let it drain, let it heal, then do a permanent filling." The dentist looked in my mouth and seemed surprised. "Amoxicillin kills 99.9% of infections." He said I needed broader spectrum antibiotic. He gave me a shot that made me numb from my front teeth to my inner ear. A few minutes later, he and his assistant started work and I squealed. "Cold," I explained. The assistant put something fibrous behind my lip and started again. It felt like they were removing tartar from the tooth next to the infected one. Awhile later, the dentist said he was done. That was it? I didn't know they'd started drilling. The assistant spent the next few minutes getting all the fiber out of ...