Category: salivation
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Here’s why my sickness means I need help getting a new smile.
When I was 16, doctors told me I was sick. Honestly, I felt relieved to receive a diagnosis. After years of poking and prodding, doctors diagnosed me with an autoimmune disorder called Sjögren’s. It took years to figure out because it’s most common for women in their 60s. Today, I am 26 years old. And today –…
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The Story of a Pretty Girl.
Dear Grief, I didn’t expect to meet you in the dentist’s chair. “Oh, you’re such a pretty girl,” the fifth, maybe sixth, dentist said. “But those teeth…” Smiles poke my attention now, hitting a nerve with every passing 80-year-old woman with pearly whites. Are they real? Dentures? Crowns? Did it hurt? You wait for me, every day,…
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Fiction.
At a recent writing workshop, the author suggested that if you don’t want to write about yourself then you simply write about yourself and call it fiction. Apparently it’s a common practice of many authors. There once was a girl who discovered at a young age that she was chronically ill. Of course, the idea…
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Pucker Up.
For those Sjögren’s patients who suffer from inflammation of the parotid glands, like myself, lemons and sour candy are your tickets to salivation. Try pushing down on your glands that run on the side of your face starting by the bottom of your ears. Normal people don’t have to do this to salivate, but my…
Ashley Fenker 