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I hope you have found your bite guard. This may not be helpful, but until you find it could you use a drugstore version? I should have thought about the cats taking it. I had a cat who tucked away everything that wasn't nailed down. Once I came home and the Christmas tree was stripped. And nothing in sight - she had hidden away every last ornament and bauble. I was still finding them 10 years later.
If I discover one of my cats has my bite guard, I am definitely going to have me a new hat come winter.
I tried a drugstore variety bite guard. It didn't fit well at all. I just have to continue to clean and de-clutter and hope it turns up. One good thing this is going is forcing me to really focus on ways of getting my shoulders, head and neck to relax.
I have discovered a Feldenkrais lesson designed to make breathing easier. It helps to relax chest and neck and head.
Acupressure is helpful as well.
For about a month, I have been following Dr. Ellie Phillips' program for strengthening and remineralizing teeth. She says that strong teeth are more resistant to the effects of clenching, so I'm hoping that will help me as well.
Edith
[QUOTE=Siobhan;913964]I hope you have found your bite guard. This may not be helpful, but until you find it could you use a drugstore version? I should have thought about the cats taking it. I had a cat who tucked away everything that wasn't nailed down. Once I came home and the Christmas tree was stripped. And nothing in sight - she had hidden away every last ornament and bauble. I was still finding them 10 years later.[/QUOTE]
I am very interested in dental health, i.e. improving my own - particularly remineralizing. I googled Dr. Ellie - it seems like a simple and inexpensive program. Did you purchase a book?
Try these links. Dr. Ellie has a number of informative videos on YouTube. I bought the book for my mother, but she has yet to read it. :-(
[url=http://www.drellie.com/]Dr. Ellie - Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye[/url]
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHDm0mrj5fY]Dr. Ellie Phillips Speaks at the Founding Meeting for the American Academy for Oral Systemic Health - YouTube[/url]
Edith
This morning, I woke up at about six-fifteen. At least that's when my Tracfone LG800g alarm went off with its "Good morning, it's a wonderful day" alarm.
I got up, had some blueberries and cream, and except for bathroom breaks, I was on my feet, moving, bending, cleaning, sorting . . . for about four and a half hours.
Now I'm having a lunch break, eating two pork chops, web-surfing, and occasionally wandering downstairs to work on cleaning the front porch, that is, sweeping and mopping so I can put back potted plants I brought in on Thursday night (because the weather report on the radio suggested a possibility of eighty-mile-an-hour wind gusts and hail; Rochester, NY got a relatively benign downpour; Elmira got a tornado).
I really, really cannot believe, or at least cannot completely believe, the changes in my focus and energy since July 11, when I just stopped eating some things and started eating a lot of others.
Still tired, still fat, but changing.
One thing that just astounds me is how much I need to eat. This is because NOW, I see (without caffeine and sugar and things I'm allergic to making me either hyper or stupid or both) that when I feel a sudden drop in energy, it's because I've run out of fuel, or I'm about to. And I feel that way a lot. Or at least I'm conscious of that.
The onset of shall we say Primal hunger is much different than SAD hunger. SAD hunger is sort of like constant whining from the body: "You didn't feed me anything; I still feel like crap, why won't you listen to me . . ." Primal hunger is, "Hey, time to stock up on some of that good stuff 'cause I gotta keep going. Ignore this message at your peril."
If I lose steam and just have a little good snacky thing, I feel better most of the time. Sometimes I feel better but still need a nap.
Anyway, I need to eat, and hey, body, I'm trying, okay? Going out to buy lots of mayo right now . . .
It really is different, isn't it? For me it was quite a learning process with the new type of hunger pains that just kind of whisper instead of stomp around in nail boots. I would forget to eat and crash! I've learned much better now, though.
There are days that I just want to scream. And, in the privacy of my own home, I do.
It has been announced at work--the Parking and Municipal Code Violations office for Rochester, NY--that everyone not already trained to be a cashier will be trained. This will be in order to handle an expected influx of citizens at our cash window.
Twenty-thousand citizens will be receiving letters indicating that if they don't pay certain delinquent tickets, their credit could be affected.
I told the cash office supervisor that I can't do that. I have never been formally diagnosed, but I have a number of the symptoms of dyscalculia. I've always had trouble de-coding and using numbers, ever since I can remember.
Beyond basic math, I have very few clues. I got Cs and Ds in algebra in junior high and high school. I did a little better with geometry.
Even with basic math, if I'm tired, nervous, hungry, I have a hard time. I often apply the wrong mathematical functions to numbers: I see 3+3, I think it's 3-3. I see 12-9, and I put down 17 because, well, the closest I can come is that 7 and 2 equal 9, and somehow my brain thinks that applies.
Back before cash registers that provided change information, I had two jobs where I had to make change for people. I had to write everything down to figure out how to make change, and even then I got things wrong.
I am already struggling at work because it is mostly data entry. Numbers!
In order to do my work, I have to go slower than everyone else, and I am constantly having to check myself over and over. And because I am a higher grade clerk than other clerks in the office, I have been given tasks that Have. To. Be. Done. Right.
God certainly knows I want to get a new job. At my age, with my extremely unimpressive resume, and with no energy and focus left over from work, I have literally no clue whatsoever about the first step to take to be able to walk out the door to another job. Maybe here, too, I am dealing with some form of learning disability. I do have a lot of trouble putting things in sequence.
Primal eating has made it easier to cope. My brain, however it's wired, has not been in quite as much of a muddle during the past three weeks of really snarfing down protein and good fat.
But numbers are still a problem.
So, to wrap this up, I have to get a referral from my primary care doctor so I can be tested. Then I have to provide proof to my employer that I have a learning disability.
It makes me so angry. I have a high IQ. I have a master's degree in English. I'm in my current job because I have to survive day to day, and none of my particular skills seem to be survival skills. For two years, I have worked like a dog. There are days when I am sitting at my desk, literally sweating as i do my work.
I am a square peg passing as a round peg. And now, in order to continue to keep my job, I have to basically confess in public that I am a square peg. The Americans With Disabilities Act should offer me some protection in this situation, but the way things go in my office, I will be officially labelled and categorized.
Nobody in management will say, "Oh, this explains everything. She's not lazy or rebellious or stupid. She's just smart and hard-working in a different way. We can put her to good use and make life better for everyone in this office."
Just isn't going to happen.
At this point, I cannot, cannot, cannot afford to lose my job. I cannot. But in my many, many attempts to be an asset and not a liability in my work, this smells like one more failure, one more situation in which those in authority will look at me and roll their eyes and tell me--as I have been told several times--that I have to find ways to keep my "problems" out of the workplace. With an unstated "OR ELSE."
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaagggggghhhhh!
Edith
I'm sorry to hear about your problems and wish I could offer more than sympathy. I think the tragic thing is that you have such a good handle on your own strengths and weaknesses, and yet the powers that be insist on treating everyone the same. Best wishes - I certainly understand about the not being to lose your job part!
Sometimes a word of sympathy is exactly and all people need. I appreciate yours, Siobhan.
My job has made me quite aware--because words of sympathy are almost non-existent there--that in most circumstances it doesn't take much to keep people going. Just a word or two will do it.
Our world is so complex and hurried. We are trained from birth that if we "just do it" and present a happy, unblemished façade to the world, everything will be great. When reality strikes, and we have--gasp--problems, that means we have, according to conventional wisdom, done something wrong; we've brought it upon ourselves; we've somehow failed to follow the formula for perfection . . .
In such an environment of unrealistic expectations and pressure to do the impossible (be perfect, be happy, never grow old, make more money each year . . . ) a simple word of sympathy is a welcome gift.
My circumstances are not what I'd call tragic. If I go by Shakespeare's plays, a tragedy is a play in which people struggle and suffer; everything is meaningless, and they never learn anything; at the end, everyone dies. A comedy is a play in which people struggle and suffer; everything has a purpose, people learn and grow, and at the end there is at least one wedding.
I feel that things in my life have a purpose, and I am learning and growing (though others may disagree).
And I am happy to report that Thursday of this past week, I did finally find my bite guard in a pocket of a skirt that I took from the bottom of a pile of laundry to wear to work.
So, on we go.
[QUOTE=Siobhan;918868]I'm sorry to hear about your problems and wish I could offer more than sympathy. I think the tragic thing is that you have such a good handle on your own strengths and weaknesses, and yet the powers that be insist on treating everyone the same. Best wishes - I certainly understand about the not being to lose your job part![/QUOTE]
So hot in my part of the U.S. Yesterday, I broke down and bought and consumed three bottles of Ting, Jamaican grapefruit soda, no preservaties, sweetened with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.
Otherwise, a fine day food-wise. Breakfast was scrambled eggs with sauteed veggies (tomato, red pepper, onion, field greens salad mix). Lunch was coconut milk. Supper was "paleo pizza." (Breakfast this morning, pizza as well.)
The good news for me is that I had another Saturday in which I was not consumed by the desire to lie on the floor and do nothing. Despite the heat, I got a good amount of house cleaning done, and I got grocery shopping done as well.
Still tired, still fat, but better.
Edith