Remineralization of Teeth

These images do a decent job of showing how much wider my upper palate has become after using my Homeoblock style dental device for 8 months. They also show how my teeth seem to have remineralized during the last three weeks that I've been following basic RBTI guidelines. I've not been RBTI tested yet I've only followed the simple rules of no meats or sweets after 2 pm and then loosely followed the no food list. (No sea salt, popcorn, nuts (except coconut), chocolate, nutmeg, white potatoes, white rice, tea, shellfish, skinfish, pork, hard seeded berries. Chocolate, Tea, Nutmeg, Nuts, Popcorn, Skinned Fish (ie. tuna, shark, mahi mahi, swordfish, marlin, mackerel, bluefish, catfish, etc.), pepper.) less butter but I still eat some and I still eat high fat sheep yoghurt.

I discovered the other day that my teeth looked a lot whiter, at closer inspection I also noticed that my front teeth looked smoother around the corners. Those corners used to be really sharp and now it's as if the tooth has somehow grown a little, filled itself in with new enamel.

I know the lighting is totally different in the images however you can still see how soft the corners are and how there are no more differences in colors. Note the very low edge of the front teeth, they had a yellow discoloration all my life and it got worse on low carb and now after three weeks of RBTI it's totally gone (that's not due to any lighting trick or anything).

New image of my teeth after the use of a homeoblock style device for 8 months, and after three weeks of RBTI.


After three years on Bee Wilder's unhealthy low/no carb diet.


On low carb I also developed my first ever cavity and by the end of it I began noticing that my front teeth had grey stripes inside of them from what I guess was some kind of demineralization process. That was too depressing to even take a photo of. It disappeared as soon as I started RRARFing thankfully. But the yellow shading remained and so did the sharp edges that I had considered asking a dentist to fill in with some kind of porcelain. Now it looks like I won't need that.

Palate Expansion Update

So, this is a picture of my teeth after having used my Homeoblock style dental device for 8 months. I know it doesn't look like that drastic of a change, but trust me it is a huge difference for me. My bite right now is the best it's been in my entire life. For the first time I can actually bite down all the way cause my upper teeth are now all in front of the lower row. It feels very good and functional. The dental device itself has widened with about 1 cm. So that's how much wider the palate must have grown.

August 2011


July 2010



My upper palate is not going to be widened any more and right now I'm just using the device without widening it further. This is to allow the teeth to "settle". The next month I'll be getting some kind of thing to push my front teeth together. After a month of that we'll add veneers to create slightly bigger teeth on both sided of the front teeth - where my current smaller "piglet" teeth are sitting. This is necessary in order to keep the palate widened, otherwise, if we were to leave big gaps between my teeth, the palate would most likely shrink back again. I'll miss my piglets for sure but I really don't want to risk my palate going back to where it was when I started making the money and effort meaningless.

My orthodontist is saying that this way of changing teeth is considered "conservative", and functional. For example, I won't need to use any braces to move the teeth. We'll instead let them settle on their own, allowing time to do the job.

The amazing thing with all this, even though it may not look very drastic, is that my piglet teeth moved forward without any pressure forward what so ever on them. The pressure was all to the sides. And when the sided widened my front tow teeth moved forward on their own, as if they were growing into place naturally.

Interestingly as a kid when I had braces, the braces forcefully pushed only on the piglet teeth forward. It worked, however, my bite never improved and as soon as I discontinued using the braces after whatever two years or so of usage, the teeth moved back within no time. It was a futile practice to try to push the teeth forward with force. The homeoblock has really amazed me in that it made the teeth move forward without even the slightest pressure on them.

Also, I have felt no pain what so ever while using the homeoblock, no discomfort or anything. I was expecting to get regular headaches or so. It has been super easy to live with it. The only thing that was annoying was to try to remember to roll the little roller thing with my tongue, something that I was supposed to do all day long to prevent the tongue from pressing upward. I kept forgetting to do this. Hopefully it will be ok anyways.

I must add though that I also have not noticed any improvements in sleep while using the device, nor improvements in clarity of mind or less anxiety or anything like that. I wrote about the potential for this is this blog post:

http://healingendo.blogspot.com/2010/07/is-it-mental-or-is-it-dental.html

Some people that I've read about online do seem to see huge improvements to their life quality and mental health from widening the upper palate but I have not noticed any improvements. Also, worth noting, my CP did not improve at all from using the device. It's just interesting to note this. I am still very happy that I did use the device. Both for a better bit and frankly for cosmetic reasons. I liked my teeth before but I love them even more now! And we're not done yet, but I am looking forward to having a more traditional looking set of teeth. Never thought I would but now I do see the benefits of that. I guess once you realize the whole deal about the value of a wide upper palate, you begin to see the functional beauty in wide upper palates and straight teeth. Then your cosmetic ideals change too. Where I used to think that the most beautiful teeth were the most unique looking once, I now have fallen back into the societal norm of admiring straight teeth in wide upper palates. So, now I'm excited to get to join that group of people.

TMS update

So, a short update from me. About 5 months since I got my TMS diagnosis.

I'm now learning all I can about TMS. I'm working with an excellent psychotherapist called Alan Gordon, and he's teaching me how our human systems work from a TMS perspective.

The best way so far that I've been able to understand it is through using two movies as metaphors. The first movie is the Matrix. Basically, our physical symptoms, ie pain, hair loss, candida, etc. and interestingly enough also our emotional symptoms like anxiety, depression etc. are simply agents there to arrest us. It is our job to stop seeing the agents and instead see the codes that make them up. The symptoms are there to grab our attention. They keep us preoccupied. So long as we are preoccupied we can't feel our feelings. TMS is essentially a very powerful repression mechanism. But really all the symptoms, the physical and mental, including our negative thoughts, are agents and they are made up of ones' and zeroes. For me I have two basic codes:

1. Things that make me feel scared. (pain, anxiety, depression, worry thoughts, OCD etc)
2. Things that give me low self worth (self critical thoughts, unhealthy compulsive relationships)

Those two codes keep me so preoccupied that I can't feel whatever feelings I may be feeling, ie I repress the feelings this way. Cause I'm so wrapped up in fighting the "agents" that are trying to "arrest me" from consciousness and put me back in the "jail of repression" see below. So, with TMS it is my job to see the agents for what they are: codes there to scare me or to make me feel bad about myself.

When I learn to think "this is just TMS, it's trying to grab my attention by making me scared. It's not real, it's just a code." Then the symptom gets less energy from me and they fade away over a shorter time period. I stay out of jail.

Getting the correct diagnosis has already led me to get to experiences in my life:
1. The first pain free period of my life!!!
2. Working full time again!!!
3. A lot fewer symptoms, including almost no anxiety, nor migraine, digestive problems or depression. A lot better joints.
4. I am able to eat any food I want to eat including dairy without any reactions. I still mostly stick to eating whole foods though just cause I believe in whole foods over refined foods.
5. I am able to be around fur animals without any reactions.

I began to enjoy the above after only a few weeks of treatment and now after 5 months I'm still very stable, some period cramps have returned but that is to be expected because I'm not a psychological ninja....yet....lol. The treatment is essentially getting a better understanding and learning not to get so sucked into the symptoms.

Then there is another aspect to this. That is where the Shawshank Redemption movie enters. When the main character (Morgan Freeman) finally gets out of prison, he feels so uncertain about regular life, that he considers doing something illegal in order to get back into the prison again. Not because he liked being in prison, but because prison had become so familiar to him. It had become his point of stability and safety. Dangerous and unhappy an environment as it was.

It's the same thing with TMS. Feeling scared and bad about myself is definitely not a happy place to be, but it's very familiar to me. So, it's where my system tends to go in order to create some sort of equilibrium for itself. Now, to break free and stay free, it is my job to see the codes and not the agents. Much like when Keanu Reeves saw a woman with a red dress. He was to learn to see that she was just a code, an agent in disguise, instead of getting seduced by her.

As I understand it, that is also the idea behind Buddhist enlightenment. So, I'll have to become enlightened and feel my feelings instead of running back to jail through my symptoms. That's obviously not an easy task and I've only just begun that journey but I do feel more hopeful than ever before.

The above way of functioning is supposedly human and completely normal. It's just when it becomes so commonly used on a daily basis that it's hard to function in life that it becomes a "syndrome", an illness that requires treatment.

It's also a challenge to sift out what is healthy and worth continuing to have in my life, and what is contributing to continuing the symptoms. Some of that has got to do with an attitude change too. For example, yoga is healthy and still something I keep in my life three times a week. However, I don't go because I thin yoga will "cure my endometriosis" or anything like that. I go for wellbeing, to feel good about my life and myself. I also sometimes go to cranio sacral treatments but also not to be cured of anything, not to lessen any symptoms, only because it feels good to feel that relaxed.

I hope to continue becoming enlightened and more and more free from symptoms. A part of me knew all along that I was experiencing a psychosomatic situation. I was never able to separate the two parts of myself. lol.

The End of one Road the Beginning of Another

I just got back from Los Angeles where I finally got to meet with a wonderful medical doctor, Dr Schechter, MD, who specializes in psychosomatic illness. You can check him out here:

www.mindbodymedicine.com

I'm so happy that after 12 years of being certain that in my case, much of my health issues are related to emotions and psychological issues, but only running into medical doctors who at best have had no clue, I have finally found a competent and respectful physician who not only agrees with me that my health issues are psychosomatic, but who has a way of medically diagnosing psychosomatic illness, and on top of that has a developed, tried out, and seemingly effective treatment program that addresses this exact problem. I have been hunting for the bodymind connection together with millions of others for years and done my best to incorporate psychotherapy, meditation, positive thinking, massage, stress reduction and many other things into my own DIY healing program that as you can see from this blog, has not worked wonders.

After the physical examination and some very thorough blood work the doctor was able to give me a proper diagnosis.
It is with much joy that I can declare that I have a proper, medical diagnosis of:
TMS, Tension Myositis Syndrome!

This is wonderful news because the prognosis is amazing! It also means that I am in fact totally healthy physically!!! It is such a relief to know that the underlying cause of my still very real physical symptoms is nothing dangerous or difficult to figure out, nor is it incurable or chronic or evil, it's simply caused by emotions. :)

Now that I have the correct diagnosis, I will be able to work on the correct treatment! I fully believe that this is the right diagnosis for me and I am looking forward to doing the treatment program which is a home study program and specific mindbody focused psychotherapy by a therapist trained in the area of psychosomatic illness.

As I understand it, TMS is technically a mental disorder with physical manifestations. It's not the same as being a hypochondriac, but instead it is a psychosomatic condition. The difference between the two is that a hypochondriac believes they have medical physical problems that they do not have. The psychosomatic person has real medical physical problems, but the problems are caused not by organic causes like hormones or viruses or mechanical faults, but by emotions, stress and tension. If these problems can be healed, the medical conditions will also be restored, within some limits depending upon the physical condition, but many symptoms are potentially totally reversible.

Essentially people who suffer from TMS experience their emotions through physical symptoms. This is something I feel is totally applicable to me. TMS seems further to be an illness of the nervous system. No wonder none of the diets and alternative treatments I have tried have ever worked for me!

I started this blog in 2008, and it has been so meaningful to me. In fact, it is through a comment from a kind stranger called Robert on this blog that I found out about Dr Sarno's work in the first place. Robert, I don't know how to thank you enough for sharing your wisdom with me. Also, thanks to everyone who has been cheering me on these last years! Your support has been so strengthening and has helped me continue my search for that holy grail called health.

However, I now understand that it is in my best interest that I leave behind my focus on the physical symptoms and begin an entirely different journey. One of focusing solely on the psychological aspects.

Therefore, I won't post as much here on this blog from now on, but I promise to do updates on the psychological side of things as I work through this program.

Also, thank you again Matt Stone at 180DegreeHealth.com for helping me find my way back to "eating the food". Your down to earth approach really helps us who have become fixated with cutting out food groups in meaningless, ill informed, neurotic, and sometimes harmful efforts to heal. Keep saving lost dieting-souls! :)

To further focus away from health, I plan on creating a new blog where I will post some of my electronic music. I will add a link to that new blog when I have got it started.

Thank you all for your support! I wish you continued luck on your healing journeys.

I'll leave you for now with one of my favorite cover versions of Dolly Parton's "I will always love you" by the ever entertaining and brilliant "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes to symbolize leaving the physical symptoms to the past. Not that I will always love the symptoms but I couldn't think of anything better. lol....

Tsunami Relief through Friends and Apples

My friend Umi from Japan is doing some PTSD trigger calming techniques with her friends and giving us all a break from the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear power plant melt downs, showing us the simple healing power of the apple, laughter and friendship. This video is aimed at everyone who has been effected directly or indirectly by the recent events and for Umi's mother in Japan.



http://www.youtube.com/embed/82nNPEKo0aw

To read Umi's blog go to:
http://nomoregaman.blogspot.com/

For tsunami donations:
http://www.jprn.org/

Some Improvements

Short update. I've lost 15 pounds now finally over the last couple of months. I've also lost some body temperature though, but not too drastically. I've gone from being around 98.0 F to around 97.7 F. So I think it's ok. I don't get much higher than 98.2 though anymore and I used to get close to 99.0 F during ovulation before. But it's a trade off cause I'm so tired of my belly fat.

My depression has gotten a little bit better since I cut out taking the egg shell calcium, but it's still there and it might have something to do with the uric acid issues? My joints have also improved a bit since I cut out the egg shell calcium but they are still not back to complete functional/normal. Perhaps over time it will. My sleep has also improved the last week or so.

For Better of For Worse

Having walked around campus with my skirt up unknowingly the other day I can safely say that I don't suffer from any kind of Pinocchio Complex. I was thoroughly amused at my own silliness and happy to be able to entertain.

I also have lost 10 pounds now. It cost me a loss of about 0.5 degree in basal body temperature so I'll have to overeat this weekend for sure to balance things out. It feels a lot better though to shed some of that extra body fat and get more of a muscle composition.

Serious, hard core, major depression right now though. Working on that one. I have so few physical symptoms now I have to face that other stuff and it's definatley overwhelming. The best medicine so far "Old Man Markely"