stop chewing the inside of my mouth

Haha, I thought it was just me that did that!

I didn’t even realize I started doing this, untill my mom pointed it out to me, she does it too, and she told me to stop or I’d get wrinkles around my lips when I’m older, that made me want to stop… I try wearing a lot of lip chap all the time, because when my lips are dry I bite the skin off them too.. also chew gum a lot, and keep reminding myself how gross it is.

I was onto something… my therapist recommended yoga, too. When I asked what to about my tick, she said that I should learn to relax my facial muscles. It’s true that my jaw feels tense most of the time. Yoga apparently helps to learn to systematically tense and then relax different muscles in the body (or face), and prevents one from involuntarily doing that. I know next to nothing about yoga, but I texted my friend and she’ll be happy to take me to her classes.

I can’t stop. I wear the mouth guard, for instance when I’m in the library – and feel relieved, but also afraid of running into somebody who wants to talk. Thank goodness it’s a library. But there’s the office, and the bus home, and each and every moment of forgetfulness. And one minute after taking it out, I’m at it again. It’s probably among the top five things I’m preoccupied with, 24/7. Maybe I should join my friend for those yoga classes. I really don’t know.

I don’t know how to stop. Been doing it for 15 years. It doesn’t hurt unless I bite off too much, and I do it constantly. Started in 8th grade. I’ve heard it can lead to cancer. I smoke occassionally. Now my daughter just started doing it. Blah…

I had to add this to my 43 things because of what happened the other day. I was sat listening to music, reading a magazine and absent mindedly, I started chewing the bottom of my right cheek. I chewed it so much, I took a chunk out of it and now I am in the worst pain imaganable! It hurts to speak, and I can only eat or drink at my left side. I’m also avoiding eating any ketchup or anything like that since the other night I made the mistake of getting ketchup on the cut. I was nearly on the floor in pain : (

It’s starting to heal now, and should be completely fine by the end of the week but I really need to learn my lesson from this cause next time it could get infected, and I really can’t handle the pain! I’ve taken to chewing on straws, and that seems to be working so far, so fingers crossed!

To overcome this habit, at suggestion of my family doctor, I started taking 2 mg of diazepam (generic for Valium) once daily at noon (because problem was worse in pm). That was about 3 weeks ago. I haven’t bitten my mouth since. Hallelujah! I hope this works for you, too.

I’d stopped doing this without even realising. Unfortunately, I only realised that I’d stopped because I’ve started doing it again. :(

I only tend to do this to the right side of my lower lip. I usually do it when I’m bored, nervous/worried. Probably the weirdest part about it is kind of liking the slight tangy taste on the area where I’ve been chewing it.

If anything it’s gotten worse, and I’m frightened about losing my dental brace/night guard again or of being somewhere without gum. Whether I’m at the movies, reading the newspaper or using the computer, I continue to chew. I saw Milk last night and dove for my handbag and the brace in the middle of the film when I noticed that I was biting my cheek again. (I hope nobody noticed, since this dental brace is as sexy as an eighty-year-old’s false teeth). And of course there’s always reason to chew, since the skin doesn’t get a chance to heal.

I browsed through other people’s entries and found one person who tried a funny way of modifying her behavior… she apparently pretended to be both a dog (chewing something bad) and the dog’s owner (training the dog). ;-) But how exactly does that work? I have a hard time being self-aware when reading, for instance.

So, still no other plans ideas about what to do about this, only the plan to wear this dental brace as often as possible.