My Unintended New Year's Resolution!

When I was little, I used to suck my thumb. To hear my mom tell it, it was a hard habit for me to break. They tried all kinds of things, including bribery. I agreed to stop and mom was going to take me to get my ears pierced. Well, evidently the trauma of getting my ears pierced led me back into the comfort of thumb sucking!

I eventually got over it I guess. But not long after, picked up the nasty habit of biting my nails. I can even remember sitting in my bath tub at the house I mostly grew up in. I was biting them and Mom told me to stop. I then put my hands under the water and proceeded to pick at my nails. Ha! Like she couldn't see my hands under the water! Anyway, she said, "Don't pick at them, either!" or something like that.

I just turned 34 years old this month. This has been a very long habit. I've tried to quit, but it's SO hard because your hands are always with you! Mostly I do it and don't even realize I'm doing it. I don't even know WHY. I've tried getting acrylic nails, but managed to get to those too. Mostly if I found an edge that was lifting, I just had to get in there and "help it along."

A few years ago, one of my lower, front teeth chipped. I don't remember now if it was from biting my nails or something else. I got it fixed, but it soon chipped again and took even MORE of the tooth with it. I was devastated and hated my smile. Not long after that, I bit on something that shouldn't have had anything hard in it, but it did and it chipped a TOP, front tooth! Now I REALLY hated my smile!

The crappy dentist I was going to (not the same one who "fixed" the 1st chip) wouldn't even attempt to fix the chips due to their location. Being the front teeth where we bite down and pull on food, he was sure they wouldn't hold. The last time I went to him, some of his equipment started to fail and he opened up something in the floor and tried to fix it with me in the chair! It was so dusty and awful, and a spaghetti factory of wires and hoses, I just couldn't bring myself to go back.

My husband recommended his dentist to me. He's on our dental plan, so I decided to give him a try. I was ecstatic to learn he was willing and able to fix my teeth AND it would be covered (in part) on my dental plan because it was restoration, not cosmetic! Wahooo!

While I wish they were whiter (but am not yet ready or willing to give up coffee), they are WHOLE again and I can smile more confidently.

The unintended consequence, and New Year's Resolution that came out of all of this is that I can't "feel" my nails when I bite them because of the composite in the places where I normally bite! So, whenever I go to bite them, I stop myself because I realize I can't feel it. I'm sure if I persisted, I'd figure it out. But for now, the composite stops me long enough to realize what I'm doing and STOP.