How to Stop Grinding Your Teeth

A friend of mine gave me some advice a few months ago about grinding my teeth while I sleep. She advised that there are some new mouth inserts out there that have been reengineered to be smaller but effective in stopping your teeth from grinding. i promised I'd try some/

I had tried some mouth inserts a few years ago, and couldn't sleep while they were in. I was doubtful.

I bought a new product -- Plackers Grind-No-More Dental Night Protector. I ran out of excuses last night -- you know, I have a cold, I have to get enough sleep for an early meeting tomorrow, etc. -- and finally tried one. Wouldn't you know, it worked.

There are 12 in package. Each one is good for about 3 nights, and then you throw it away and get another one. Each of is plastic, and is really just a little rope with two wings. The wings fit in between your teeth. It's that simple. And it's so small, you barely feel it.

The teeth grinding, I don't need to tell you, was detrimental to my health: it wears down your teeth, it exacerbated my TMJ, the tightness of my jaws, and the grinding woke me often throughout the night. How do you know you"re grinding yourm teeth? the telltale sign: the inside of your mouth is sore where you've bitten your cheek in your sleep.

i just bought some more of the Plackers protectors at drugstore.com. it cost $25.99 at that site. Divided by 14 in a box, and each being used 3 times, that comes to about 65 cents a night.

I'm looking forward to laying in a supply of these protectors and getting some good sleep.

The Rejuvenating Benefit of Cherries

I was reading rather perfunctorily the latest health newsletter I had just received, and it spent quite a bit of time on cherries. The catch line was, sick of blueberries? Try cherries.

The newsletter is Bottom Line Health, April 2011.

Research shows that tart cherry juice "eases post exercise muscle soreness," and points out that the New York Rangers hockey team drinks cherry juice regularly.

In a study reported by the Journal of Nutrition, "18 healthy men and women who supplemented their daily diets with just over two cups of Bing cherries daily for 28 days reduced their level of C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker in the blood that can signal plaque formation, by 25%."

I have been trying to work blueberries into a normal breakfast routine with my cereal. However, blueberries aren't all that tasteful to my mind. Cherries, on the other hand, seem like a wicked pleasure. I'll have to work cherries into my daily diet.

Writing Class for Cancer Survivors

Margo Rivera-Weiss from the Women's Cancer Resource Center (on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland) reports the following:

I’m happy to let you know that WCRC’s writing class will be meeting again. It will remain at the same time, 4th Sundays of each month (except for occasional changes – e.g. in June) from 2 -4 PM. I’m very excited to invite Leah be part of the wonderful panel of instructors offering their skills at WCRC. Information about the class and the instructor follow.

The class will meet the following dates in the next scheduling period: March 27, April 24, May 22, June 19 (note this is the 3d Sunday), July 24 and Aug. 28.

If you are interested in attending please register on the WCRC website.

Body Stories: a monthly writing workshop for women (and gender nonconforming folks) dancing with cancer and other health issues

Lead by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Come to this supportive space to write down the stories your body is holding: the good, the bad, the amazing, the resilient, the difficult and complicated of living with cancer or other illness. This writing workshop is open to all, and no experience is necessary. We'll build a community of trust where we can write our uncensored truths, experiment with new kinds of writing and share the stories only we know how to tell.

Facilitator bio: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer, performer and teacher who lives with chronic illness. The author of Consensual Genocide, her writing has been widely anthologized, including in Colonize This!, Without a Net, We Don't Need Another Wave, and Persistence: Still Butch and Femme. She is a lead artist with Sins Invalid, the Bay Area's performance project on disability and sexuality and has taught writing at UC Berkeley's June Jordan's Poetry for the People Program, Toronto's Asian Arts Freedom School and many colleges and community-based arts spaces across North America. She believes that writing can be a tool to liberate and heal.

Facing Every Pound, One by One

I haven't posted in awhile, but that's because I haven't been happy with how I've been handling my health. I finally reached the tipping point. (Something about not being able to fit into certain pieces of clothing...)

I was inspired by my partner, who joined Weight Watchers. She had joined WW before, without much success, mostly because of the issues re: weighing in. She is now working with an online group, and is quite encouraged by her feelings of control over her own body as well as her dramatic weight loss.

But I didn't want to do that. Counting points...ugh. I don't want to write a food diary. I've tried that, and was really bad at recreating what I had eaten - in amounts and ounces. The other issue, and this is the BIG one, is that I can't figure out how to judge (1) how to control the number of calories and fat in one meal, and (2) how to judge portion size. When I had to eat out one night, I had a BLT, what I thought was one of the best choices I could've made. Oh, My God. Lots of calories, and obviously lots of fat.

So, with those challenges, I found that Nutrisystem was a pretty good match. You don't have to memorize the point system. You enter in your weight every day, or whenever you feel like it, and your meals. And it became a computer game.

I've been on the system for a week, and I have lost 4 pounds. I'm encouraged, more than the weight loss, because my glucose levels have been outstanding in the meantime. Well, that's easy to understand: since I'm not buying cokes and candy - I don't want to have to have the challenge of entering them - my blood sugar level is coming down to "normal."

If I could change one thing, it's the food Nutrisystem offers. It's not that it's bland, it's that some of it's weird. At least, unlike some other systems, you can order a la carte. I think I can do the breakfasts by myself, and I'm learning how to do lunch, but dinner is tough. So I have gone to some of the other sites, found better food on one, and ordered some from there, just to compare. We'll see how it goes.

The one thing I've learned is that the portion size is SMALL. I am so surprised. I thought I knew it all. I don't.

This Won't Hurt One Little Bit

The doctor suggested I get a shot for tetanus. This was after several weeks of "fixing" my newly arthritic knee with a cortisone/steroid shot. I had heard rumors about tetanus shots, but I couldn't remember when I last got one. Oh, sure, go for it, I said.

After the nurse pricked me with the needle, I told her, "Oh, that's not so bad." She smiled. Did she smile because I was complimenting her, or because she knew the pain that would follow?

Tetanus is a musculature injection. That upper arm ached for several days afterward. In fact, a full week later, I still have a bruise.

In spite of the knee injection, which hurt in a different way, and the tetanus shot, I asked for another shot, if you can believe that: an injection against shingles. The medical term for it is Zostavaccine, otherwise known as Zostavax.

I had read about it in one of the pricey medical newsletters I get - but if I can get the shot, that newsletter will have paid for itself. Unfortunately, my clinic, Lifelong, did not have it, and did not expect to get it. So, they gave me a prescription. I knew it would be hard to fill.

I've gone to my regular got-to-have-it-now pharmacy, Long's, and she immediately knew they didn't have it. I called in to my mail-order pharmacy, CVS, and they said they don't send that to individuals. Hmmm....

I will pursue this next week. I'll probably have to try the larger spots like Wal-Mart. One friend on Facebook suggested I try Sav-On drugs, as she had hers administered there....but in Nevada.

My partner had shingles. My son had shingles just last year. My father had shingles, which made the last years of his life terribly painful. I'll keep trying.

Colon Cancer Update on March 16th

There's a FREE class being offered to the public on Colon Cancer:

What you need to know...
*Cancer is preventable.
*Colonoscopy is the gold standard.
*Lifestyle does make a difference (i.e., diet, exercise).

Speaker: Brian T. Paaso, MD
Gastroenterologist, Palo Alto Medical Foundation

Location: California State building, Monterey Room
455 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco

Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Time: 12noon - 1pm

For more information, call 1-888-315-5988, or email education@cpic.org.

Visiting the Contagious

My brother is still contagious, still sitting in Sharp Hospital in the MICU ward. James, the physician's assistant, was very helpful in letting me know how contagious this MRSA is. He made me suit up -- wear a gown and gloves -- before I went into the room to see my brother.

But see him this morning I did. I even touched him, although he didn't really acknowledge the touch of cold latex. He was awake this time, though, and talkative. The MRSA bacteria is still working on his brain, though, confusing him, so what he said didn't make a whole lot of sense. He did say, "What's new?" which was quite amusing.

He's still under treatment for a virulent strain of MRSA, which had been allowed to go unchecked for a year. But he's alive. And improving.

MARSA Hits Close to Home

I'm currently in San Diego, where I am visiting my brother daily. My brother is in Sharp Hospital, where he's being treated for various things. At the top of the list: meningitis and MARSA.

I hadn't heard about MARSA before I got here. Apparently it's an invasive bacteria that worked its way into the spine and eventually caused meningitis. He's in the contagious ward of the ICU, the MICU. And, in order to go into the room, I have to suit up so that I'm protected.

So far there's been no need to go into the room, as I can see him from the doorway, and he's been asleep the entire time. He does wake up from time to time, answers questions briefly, but, according to the nurse, can't process much or have a heavy conversation. He most likely will not remember any visitors.

However, I have hope that he'll be more cognizant of what's going on today when I go in. If he is, I'll suit up and go on in. I'm leaving town today, at least for awhile. He's in good hands.

The Link Between Disease and Inflammation

There's a fascinating article in the December 2009 U.S. News & World Report issue entitled, "Quenching the Slow Burn," and subtitled, "The evidence is mounting that chronic inflammation plays a role in diseases from cancer to heart disease to Alzheimer's. Here's how you can stop it."

Most of us have heard that inflammation is at the root cause of diseases like cancer, diabetes and so many more. And evidence keeps pointing in that direction. "Cancer, diabetes, depression, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's -- these seemingly diverse diseases are increasingly thought to have a common denominator: inflammation." (Quote is from U.S. News & World Report, December 2009, page 32.)

I'm not going to go into the why, although the article talks a bit about that. An interesting side-note in the discussion: what 'kick-starts' the disease? It seems in each person it's different, or unique. It might be smoking, or obesity (due to inflammatory proteins produced by fat cells), or a disease confined to one area (e.g., gum disease). However, what I'm most interested in, and for the purpose of this article we'll confine ourselves to a discussion of: what can we do to prevent inflammation? I will be quoting from the article in the points below.

* Assess yourself. Are you overweight, or even more importantly, is your body fat distribution -- on your waist as opposed to your hips and thighs -- more detrimental to your health? "Having a large waist measurement -- at or above 35 inches for a woman and 40 inches for a man -- means you're likely to have excess inflammation." Also, high blood pressure, high glucose levels (diabetes), and high cholesterol can also trigger inflammatory responses.

* Change to a Mediterranean diet. "Consuming a Mediterranean-style diet -- rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, olive oil, and fish -- is known to protect the heart, and that's probably because it lowers the level of pro-inflammatory chemicals in the body."

* Get active, but don't overdo it. This is pretty interesting. It's obvious that regular exercise can move your metabolism, "but research also suggests that superlong workouts can cause inflammation levels to spike for a day or two afterward."

* Reduce stress and get adequate sleep. An interesting study by Shively "demonstrated that monkeys that were the most subordinate in their social groups -- which means they got less grooming from their peers and were often the target of aggression -- also put on more belly fat when fed a Western-style diet high in fat and cholesterol compared with monkeys that were at the top of the pecking order. Anything that stresses the body, from too little sleep to too much tension, can cause belly fat to accumulate."

* Floss and brush twice every day. "The link between gum disease and heart disease has been well established... The very same bacteria that cause inflammation and swelling in the gums appear to be a source of inflammation and thickening of the arteries."

* Consider probiotics. "...the beneficial bacteria found in yogurt and probiotics supplements can help keep in check the 'bad' bacteria that reside in your gut and generate an inflammatory response. Try a daily serving or two of yogurt and other dairy products containing probiotics.... You can also try the supplement Align."

Colonscopy - Prep Day Is Sh**

There is nothing more gruesome than Prep Day for the next-day colonoscopy. Nothing.

This is my fourth time. I should know all the ins-and-outs (sorry). Still, I read the instructions over three times so that I'd get it right. I prepared the icky Go-Lytely liquid and put it in the refrigerator that morning. I put everything out on the table: the pill I would take at 5pm. The instructions. The directions on how to get to East Bay Endoscopy.

At 5 in the evening, I took the pill. And half an hour later, I started the dreaded process of drinking one glass of Go-Lytely every 15 minutes. Hell, I don't even drink that much water during a regular day. Maybe if I did, well, that water is under the bridge.

Let me just interject that I don't know how those people who prepare Go-Lytely think that it's a lemon flavor they're giving me. If I were a lemon I'd be angry, very angry. It's more like a, say, dishwater-puke kind of flavor, not to be recommended.

I drank it all. Still, everything did not go well. I wasn't finished evacuating when it came time to get into the car and drive to the Endoscopy Center in Emeryville. I've been through this before, in a different way, when, a few years ago, I threw up and said to hell with it: I'm not finishing that horrible libation. As a result, the the pictures of my colon weren't clear. And I had to return a year later, do the whole thing all over again. I vowed that would not happen again.

Well, I got a slight reprieve. This time I did everything I was supposed to, but the results were still not clear. So I have to return in two years.

Next time I either need to start earlier or get a stronger laxative.

I'm still smiling, though: the results were super! No polyps in evidence. That's the good news.

And I have hopes that in two years they'll have developed an easier way of doing this.

Get started, scientists. You have time.