5 min read
No More Mossy Teeth for People with Sensory Issues
When Brushing Your Teeth Is Hard
"I'm ashamed to admit this, but the number of years may be in the double digits, and I am only 22. Not brushing my teeth was like wearing the same old pair of jeans. Eventually, it stopped feeling grotesque and simply felt like a second skin. However, as time went on, I grew a new civilization in my mouth with its own unique system of government. The 'sip some juice, and the feeling goes away trick' stopped working. I'm sure you are wondering why I would go to such lengths to avoid brushing my teeth. This is something my mother asked quite a bit when I was a young child, perhaps every day… perhaps three times a day. 'I can't stand the feeling,' This is what I would say to my despairing mother, over and over, as she looked at me perplexed.""To solve this problem my mother took to brushing my teeth while I was asleep. This became a nightly occurrence.""It was somewhat effective. My mother, despairing over my oral health and hygiene, made the profound discovery that if you slop toothpaste in half-conscious kid sleeping mouth, they will wake up and have no choice but run to the bathroom and finish the job. Eventually, I caught on and I pretended to continue sleeping through the night and didn’t get up to do “the spit and rinse”. However, my very resourceful mother then took to wiping the toothpaste off my teeth as I feigned sleep. There was no getting past my mother’s understandable determination to avoid letting her child’s mouth rot. My mother, also being a psychologist, decided to research why I was so “stubborn” about my teeth. Thankfully for me she realized I wasn’t doing any of this on purpose. She figured out that I had “sensory problems." In the case of the horrifying tooth brushing, I was overly sensitive. I actually perceive tactile stimuli (i.e. things that I feel or touch, or that touch my skin and clearly my teeth) at a much higher level than others. As if this isn’t bad enough, I am also under-responsive. So, some areas of my skin almost feel numb to touch and I need a higher level of stimulation to feel what others feel. Eventually my bathroom garbage can was full of discarded toothbrushes because some tooth brushes were too hard and some were too soft."
"So, the mystery of my toothbrushing saga was finally solved. Yet, I still hated the feeling of a thin, bristly toothbrush, and I couldn’t walk around with bleeding, over-flossed gums."
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