20211125 : my Teeth set

-
Before I had my stroke, I was reasonably healthy and had a reasonable muscle tone. After the stroke, due to being absolutely immobile (muscle wasting), in about 8 weeks, I was reduced to skin and bones. It was horrible to see myself (I could only see my legs then). Seemed like only the skeleton!

But I was not very much concerned. Even though I was very concerned about how my body had become - I was not very worried. Besides, I knew how to build back muscles. I would do the same after I got ok (this was when I believed in the 'some months' version of I'll get ok).

What I was secretly proud of was my teeth set.

Except for 1 cavity in the back of a molar (which was not visible from the front - in my defense), I hadn't had to go to the dentist for anything else in my adult life (except when I was a very young boy - pre teens stuff).

I had quite a neat, well aligned, well maintained teeth set.

It took some time after the stroke for the muscle wasting to happen and turn me to a skeleton. A gradual process. Whilst it happened rapidly, didn't happen overnight

The gums are made of 2 layers (well like all things, there is a lot more detail, but primarily 2).

The one attached to the teeth is called gingiva - quite rigid. The other is made up of muscle and ligaments. It is flexible, but very sturdy and continuously works to hold the teeth in its place. (It's this flexible part we rely on, to realign teeth with braces. Takes a while)

Needless to say, we know what happened to all things muscle after the stroke. In the initial months - till my jaw rigidity set in, I could see my teeth (I used to be shown a mirror for feedback by my speech therapist).

The lips/ tongue were in a horrifying state anyway. I used to get even more horrified looking at my teeth set over the months. 

There were no longer muscle to do their job. The teeth were taking a walk everywhere. They were also loosely helt and shaking all over (I could only see them - I could feel nothing in the mouth anyway). Every tooth was in some vague position. Even lost one of my upper incisor in the bargain.

After 32 months, I can feel them a little. I don't know what I feel because they are all over the mouth and simply cannot relate to that feeling.

I think/ feel that the movement/ shaking is reducing too - which is good news.

Except - everything will get rigid/ frozen in it's current positions like crooked statues.

I feel like a snake. My canines have moved back and turned inward. My fangs now! 😂


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

20231208 : Privilege...

-
  Before my stroke, I had enough and more work to do - both on the work front and home front. I had reasonably ok health, reasonably good eating habits, reasonably good physical activities. Money is not enough for anybody, but it was reasonably ok as well. The only thing I had very less of (almost none) was time! Free time specifically. I keep sharing video recommendations to many folks regularly - most of them,  long talk show formats (1½ - 2 hours sometimes). Very interesting and informative pieces in my opinion. In today's world filled with over information and disinformation, it is almost impossible to understand most things if we don't spend the time and either read and research ourselves (which is a very far shot) or spend time going through secondary sources who have done it for us and can present it in an unbiased way.  Without it, it is very easy in today's world to get biased, subscribe to misconceptions, get misled, manipulated, etc.  However, often I get the res
Read more

20240124 : balancing the equations...

-
It is fascinating to read and understand how muscles work. For all my life, (since I had not given it any thought earlier), I simply had assumed a muscle is 1 muscle. Ex, if we say bicep muscle, it was one muscle in my mind (I don't know why I imagined so, but so it was). The truth is very far from it . Each muscle is made up of hundreds of strands (maybe thousands). And the best part (I have practically understood, not backed by any medical stuff) - is that each strand is connected separately to the brain and not as one.  For mechanical enthusiasts, each strand works like a sort of rack and pinion arrangement, operated by a chemical reaction, triggered by the brain. Each strand has two separate connections to the brain - one to work the rack and pinion arrangement each way (to contract the muscle strand and the other to release it or relax the muscle strand). In short, that's how it achieves any movement. By selecting the set of muscle strands to activate (how many most probab
Read more

20240402 : Transducers...

-
Transducers Came across this word recently when I was reading something. Hadn't come across it for a while. Its a word and concept I learnt in my electronics course (either in 12th or my 1st year engineering course I am not very sure now) A transducer, very plainly speaking, is something which helps bridging the analog world with the digital world.  For example, take the very simple digital thermometer in our homes. They can't directly measure temperature in digital form. They have a transducer inside which converts the temperature from a analog/ real world scale to a digital world scale so it can be displayed. Generally speaking, we can say it helps bridge the real world with the digital world. When I had my stroke and I was told I will struggle for balance, I was not able to understand why. My understanding (based on my school learning) was that balance is maintained by the inner ears. Of course we were not told how and I never bothered to ask. I just knew balance was maintai
Read more