How I wanted to spend all my flexible benefits money so I had a $700 plastic mouth guard made because I grind my teeth? You may also recall that Sleepless-In-San-Francisco-Poppy alleges that I snore. Anyway, I was telling Boss-Karen about the mouth guard and how Dr. Dreamy-Farmer said to keep it away from dogs. Well, BK's husband, GAF also has an alleged snoring problem and he bought a PureSleep mouth guard.
What is a PureSleep mouth guard?
It's a two piece-snap together mouth guard. Same principle as those athletic mouth guards where you heat it and form it to your teeth, only this one you snap it together and then when you bite down to mold it to your teeth, you jut your bottom jaw out creating an under bite. In theory, this pulls the tissue away from the back of the throat while you're sleeping and POOF! No more snoring.
Oh, let me finish the GAF story...he gets the mouth guard and has it sitting on the bedside table. They've got some friends over who have a dog and the dog disappears for a while. Later that night, GAF finds his mouth guard all gnawed on. Now he has to buy a new one, but they are so popular, they've upped the price from the last time he bought it, like double or something. BK tells me that it really works.
Can't hurt to try it. It came yesterday. I get out all the accoutrement I'll need to do the fitting; boiling water, paper towels, a spatula and cuticle scissors (preferably the rusty dirty ones we have). I heat the thing up and wait the prescribed amount of time and let it cool the prescribed amount of time...although, it still was searing hot when I put it in my mouth. Not to mention, I've still got those two temporary crowns that now I'm thinking are going to get sucked off when I try to pry this thing off my teeth. I got the thing off and trimmed off the parts with my unhygienic cuticle scissors.
Time for bed. I put the thing in my mouth. It's big, but I think I can get used to it. Nocturnal-Poppy comes to bed around midnight. At about 4:00am, I take the thing out cause it's bugging me. But did sleep fine with it in. Then, I swear, not a few minutes later PO'd-Poppy gives a grunt and I figure I'm allegedly snoring, again. Then at 6:00am, Sleep-Deprived-Poppy says "Kelly, did you take that thing out of your mouth?!" I sheepishly say "Yes." She says "It's working!" So I go put it back in. Both Poppy and I are amazed at how well this thing works. It's a miracle...even though I'm not sure I really snore.
But, here's my thought. If I allegedly snore because the muscles in the back of my throat relax that tells me that they've atrophied over the years and maybe I need to do like kagel exercises of the throat. Makes sense to me. In fact, I'm doing them right now.
I guess I'll give the dog my $700 mouth guard.
Happy New Year!
