Letting my guard down.

[captainsblog]

Fairly big, and fairly small, accomplishments today.

I cleared out the other half of the garage so we can - and do- now get both vehicles in there. Snow hasn't been an issue yet, but frosty 7 AM windshields definitely have. I also took the opportunity to thin the herd of files that reside temporarily on my car's side of the garage, with all of that smaller number now residing in file cabinets or sealed plastic totes rather than ratty old bankers' and TP boxes.

I felt bad when Eleanor got home after all that, because in the shuffle, I'd forgotten to relocate one of her handmade afghans that fell to the garage floor once all the temporary resting places for it out there got moved or piled on with udda thingza. It still needs a good cleaning, and I will make sure it gets one, whether it's something that can be done at home or not.

----

I also took not quite an hour to take a nap for primarily experimental purposes.

At my dentist's behest, I got me to a Dick-ery earlier this week and, for the first time in my life, came home with a piece of football equipment.

This one:



It's designed to tether into a football helmet, but in my case the plan was to just wear this upper-tooth mouth guard "straight no 400-pound chaser" to keep my lower teeth from grinding the bottoms of my upper front chompers away, as they've been doing recently.  Dr. Ron can custom-make one for me for just under $300, but he suggested I try a generic $20 job first, just to be sure I can sleep with anything in there.

The initial verdict, from earlier this week? I couldn't.

This model's called a "Gel Nano," and the "gel" part refers to the flexible moldable interior that you pre-set to fit your uppers. You do it through, literally, a 12-step process of preparing the guard: boiling, waiting, cooling, licking, sucking, pushing and setting. All of which I did, two nights ago.  I lasted barely an hour in bed with it, as the by-the-book fit resulted in an instant and constant parade of drool. Something about the fit was making my mouth water, and not for Eleanor's next-night menu. I bailed on it and resolved to re-boil, re-wait, re-everything again when I had the chance.

That chance was this afternoon, and this time, I chose more of an overbite, with less of the guard pushing into the back of the roof of my mouth.  It's taking some getting used to, but I made it- if not sleepily, at least drool-lessly, for more than half an hour.

Now to see how it goes tonight.

Comments

[paterson-si.livejournal.com]

Got used to it or abandoned it all altogether?

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Made it through the night with it. I reset the bite with the appliance further frontward, so it doesn't set off my drool reflex, but it does cause me to wake up with a pretty ugly fat lower lip from the thing resting on it all night. It goes away quickly, though, so I'm going to keep working with it.

[paterson-si.livejournal.com]

So you are a totally different man in the morning. :)