After more decades than I will admit of having issue free teeth, I was treated to having 5 cavities filled this week. My first ones ever, and 5 in one shot. This of course led to the dropping of much money on dental hygiene items such as floss, floss picks, new toothbrushes, mouthwash, tongue scrapers, etc, and many hours pouring over various websites and articles devoted to the maintenance of perfect teeth.
The other thing that freaked me out at the dentist was a blood pressure reading of 140 over 85. For the majority of my life I've enjoyed naturally low blood pressure reading around 114/54. At first I attributed it to being twitchy about having my teeth drilled, and assured myself that it would be considerably lower at the next visit.
141/90
A friend of mine suggested I might have "white coat syndrome" where apparently your blood pressure shoots up at the mere sight of a doctor or dentist. As much as I would like to cling to that theory, the truth is all of those absurdly low readings were also done by the evil men (and women) in white, so it doesn't wash.
I've managed to cut the sodas out for the most part, only having had a handful of them in the past few months, but I guess it's time to accept that I'm no longer 18 and the equivalent of a human trash compactor when it comes to eating whatever I want with no ill effects. For the next two weeks, it looks like I'm on the Dr Mirkin "Show Me" diet and then will attempt to eat along his DASH diet as much as possible. I don't believe in "diets" in terms of Lose 20 Pounds By Labor Day™ because I'm well aware that the instant you quit the "diet" and resume your old eating habits you just blow up all over again, which is why I never bother with "dieting". However, that 90% of my brain that is not used for normal functions likes to entertain itself with worst case scenarios, usually something along the lines of what it would be like if I lost control of the vehicle and slammed into that concrete retaining wall at 84 mph. Lately it has been showing me what my teeth could look like should I continue on my soda and snackies path, along with what my ass could potentially morph into should I refuse to get back on some semblance of an exercise program.
Time to eat my oatmeal.
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