addition by substraction

I had a tooth pulled (i.e., extracted) today.

The pain of yesteryear called TMJ was likely the hairline fracture in the removed tooth.

Call it addition (improvement) by subtraction (extraction).

Went smoothly enough.

Versed, a brand name for the anesthetic midazolam, works wonders. At least for me.

I do not take the success of this "procedure" (the all-purpose medical euphemism) for granted.

Oh no.

I really don't.

Posturing

So the physical therapist launched into a valedictory sermon on posture, pointedly telling Pawlie that keeping the back and shoulders straight while sitting, while typing, while anythinging, is paramount in mitigating my rotator cuff impingement and toward pain prevention. Not that I disagreed. How could I? Not that I am unwilling to try. Why should I be? But a certain gloom hovers over my shoulders in knowing the tenacity of habits, the tenuousness of reform, in this case, literal re-forming. But that gloom is not supposed to round my shoulders, slump them forward.

Lips together teeth apart. Or tongue against the roof of the mouth. Those exercises were simple enough but hard enough to persist in, to alleviate terrible TMJ pain last year (mostly gone now).

Habits die hard. New ones take root in a soil of fragility.

To say nothing of moral posturing, or other poses.

Rotator Cuff, the Metaphor

The orthopedist (or orthopaedist, if you're into such diphthongs) says I have a rotator cuff problem. It might be bursitis or tendinitis (a word frequently misspelled). It's also called Shoulder Impingement Syndrome. It's my right wing (the Sarah Palin section of the body), even though I'm left-handed and mostly left wing. The doc says the rotator cuff essentially keeps my arm from flying off my body. I'm now going to physical therapy a few times a week and have to do a series of exercises in the meantime. Sometmes I do, sometimes I don't.

What's the prescription for my more frequent malady, Interlocutor Infringement Sindrome? What exercises are recommended to thwart my propensity for the conversational interruption (talkus interruptus), the errant comment at the inopportune moment? Maybe that's how I developed TMJ, from biting off sentences. Naw. Doesn't happen enough. My sentences more frequently wander off like the fly fisherman's lure cast into a burbling brook.

Carry on.

As you were.

Have a pleasant Labor Day, in America -- or a fine-fettled Monday elsewhere.

Oral Fixation

Oral fixation, it's not just what you think. Oh sure, my oral fixation is shamelessly succulent (well, given my strict Catholic upbringing, redact that to "shamefully") and mammary. Add to that addictiveness a new oral fixation, quite literally a fix-ation.

Let me explain.

The ear-nose-throat doctor-cum-dentist tells me it's TMJ that is at the root of my non-root-canal jaw pain. (You people need to get your minds out of the pig trough: cum here is from Latin and means with. And it ain't pronounced like that word in skin mags. [The Merriam-Webster link has a pronunciation sound bite.] Besides, it's high-class porn we aim for here anyway.) More accurately, he noted that TMJ describes a muscle and bone structure, not a syndrome.

So, my oral fix-ation consists of a number of things:

1) putting ethyl chloride on the skin outside my jaw and near my ear and temple. That's kind of cool, literally. It creates a freezing. The cotton ball makes a crinkling sound. Do athletes and ballet dancers spray this directly on, say, a pulled hamstring? I imagine the danger is that in merely masking the symptoms you incur greater injury.

2) Megadoses of naproxen (Aleve), which I'm not fond of.

3) Which brings me tonight's topic: I'm supposed to do this jaw exercise:

-- Place tongue on roof of mouth.

-- Open to approximately half of normal opening; keep tongue in place. Open for 10 seconds; rest 15 seconds.

-- Repeat for 6 times, 3 times a day. After 2 days, increase to 12 times, 3 times a day. After 2 more days, increase to 18 times, 3 times a day. After 3 days, change your name to Pinocchio or any wooden marionette of your choosing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Right.

Just picture it.

I look like one of those choirboys-cum-eunuchs on a Christmas card.

Or in a meeting at work, the person on the opposite side of the table will think I'm mocking every word. (Darn! Caught again!)

Someone on the bus (if I ever take it again) will think my mouth motions are an entreaty to meet them in a back alley at the next stop for some oral hijinks.

Oral fixation indeed.

Eighteen times three times a day?

Cum on!

Not on your maxillary-dental-labial life!