Annie saw the periodontist again a month ago. He poked and scraped, knocked and gouged, and then sat back and said, “Will you consider a nightguard?”

She felt sardonic. “Probably not,” she replied. “Why?”

“Your teeth show signs of the wear that comes from grinding.”

“We’ve been through this before,” she reminded him. “I used to grind. I remember the headaches. I taught myself not to do it any more. Those must be signs of old grinding.”

“Hmmm,” said the periodontist. He did a quarter spin on his stool, and then turned back to her with his metal hand mirror. Annie marveled at the little tool – it never fogged up – but not as much as she admired the above-chair light that didn’t blind her but always provided the illumination the dentist wanted. “Hold this,” he said as she expected.

She took the mirror handle in her right hand and positioned it in front of her mouth. The periodontist pointed to an area in her front lower right. “Now gnash your upper and lower teeth till they mesh,” he directed.

She complied. It took a second before she managed to make her teeth meet perfectly. Then she was arrested by what she saw. The only way to get her upper and lower front teeth to come together without a space was by moving her lower jaw to the left, like a camel chewing. She still couldn’t believe she was gnashing in her sleep, but she had to admit that significant wear had occurred. She left the periodontist’s office without a nightguard or a plan to acquire one, but with a definite impression.

Several hours later, at home, she thought she was relaxing. She sat on her favorite chair, TV on in front of her and iPad by her side, soft munchies and soda water within reach. Unconsciously she brought her right thumb to her mouth in order to remove a flap of hard skin. As she clamped her front teeth on that skin tag, as she prepared to tug sideways, her body remembered. She realized she had just put her jaw into the precise position she’d seen in the dental chair.

Epiphany! In a flash Annie realized that she wasn’t sleep-grinding. She was awake-grinding. She didn’t need a night guard. But she needed something.

It wasn’t rocket science. She sure wasn’t going to walk around publicly with gear in her mouth. The only course of action for Annie was to stop contorting her mouth. And the only way to stop contorting her mouth was to stop eating her own fingers. Really. She loved chewing her skin so much that she even considered using a cuticle nipper to trim and then (disgusting!) munching the removals. But she didn’t have the close vision necessary to use a nipper with precision. She was not going to don reading glasses and find good light to persist in her nasty habit. She was finally done.