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Hi guys. This past year has been a weird one for me. Health-wise I've felt horrible.
Six months ago I started feeling alive and awake when I started taking Benadyrl...this was making me breathe easier, my body feel less weak, and my severe eye pain/pressure go away...but it seemed like it barely worked unless I went and isolated myself in certain settings (like away from allergens).
Yeah. I have had allergies--after being tested I was found to be allergic to almost everything mildly to moderately, including my own dogs which was very shocking.
And...that my nose and sinuses have pretty much perpetually been half plugged up for as long as I remember. I struggle with breathing at night especially. So...this probably means I was a mouth breather as a kid, and I think I mouth breathe at night sometime.
I basically have to take 5 different meds to feel alright. At least I now know what I need to do...and I also have been a primary nose breather for a few years now (outside of nighttime), but probably with poor tongue posture.
I have had jaw pain on my left side for years and...yup. I found out 2 months ago that I have an open AND crossbite. Wow.
And the problem is that I can't afford 6000$ braces. And especially not the jaw surgery!
I'm somewhat ugly but I'm trying to do my best to fix myself. I'm wondering what facial corrective procedures I should focus on.
The issues I care about: semi-hooked/bulbous nose. Curves downward
Jaw/eye asymmetry (one side of jaw is wider than other)
Recessed cheeks makes my chin seem abnormally forward
Poor orbital development
These are all things I notice my parents don't have. Here's some references: https://imgur.com/a/2c0YPnb different lighting and stuff in a few. It's hard to fully capture the problem on cam.
I understand that I can't fix myself fully but my goal is at least...10% improvement. Like pennies to a beggar, sure, but enough for me.
you're being too harsh on yourself and most of the flaws you mentioned will go unnoticed to an untrained eye. Start practising good oral and body posture and the changes will come
I was expecting a train wreck, you don't look anywhere near as bad as you're saying. It seems like cross bites and open bites are nowhere near as bad as severe overbites and overjets for facial issues, those are far more synonymous with an ugly face from what I've seen. Echoing what Slinky said, just maintain proper posture if you can and you should see improvements.
I think with persistence you can hope for more than 10%. A number of people who have expanded their upper palate through Mewing have achieved improvements in the nasal airway. I have. I note Mike Mew has a video diary with a young man where he is trying to achieve this with appliances. So far no luck.
Your cross bite demands attention. Two things I do that make mine worse: chewing on one side and sleeping on one side. I have not found belt or towel pulling to be effective on my cross bite. It has little effect on my mandible. I proceed by trying to relax the mandible. The Falooda method of letting your mandible drop/ relax at the top of an inhalation and chewing with the incisors (or on a Jawzrcise) seem to relax the lower jaw. But ultimately I claim the space and balance that I want in my lower jaw with my tongue occupying it at about the level where the gums meet the teeth.
Chewing and sleeping on one side...oh geez. That's exactly what I've always done. Thanks for the head's up! I'll look up Dr. Mew's diary to see where it ends as well...it'll be interesting, and maybe encouraging down the line.
What types of improvements are typical in people with my particular issues? And for a while now my tongue has felt sore. Normal?
And I'm not even particularly hard on myself...I am genuinely just basing off my self-perception off of what people have told or shown me. I'm basically an incel. After being bullied and constantly insulted by guys (solely over my looks or shyness) it's hard to ever see any differently, tbh.
I think you need to focus on rotating the maxilla to a better position to help with the pursed lips, breathing etc and I believe there is also an emotional component to that tension in the mouth area, which can be released through myofunctional therapy and better rotation of the maxilla, this is what worked for me anyway. Take a ball, run it over your face, press hard in to the places that hurt especially. That's for the emotional release. Have your occupit raised and do Mckenzie chin tucks as much as possible, and for reference I wouldn't say your profile shot shows a straight enough posture: raise that occupit.
Also I will comment on your history of trauma in the hopes it helps. A primary attachment figure will go a long way toward preventing negative emotion states. Shame is one of the worst things for posture. By going to Incel communities and reading the negative things about women, possibly this is contributing to your shame. Instead you can do proactive things like the mewing, posture correction, mindfulness, and connection building for the negative emotional states and achieving correct functionality (actually these two goals go hand in hand as well).
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
Unless the photo is flipped, the one in which you are smiling seems to show your mandible askew in the other direction. Does your mandible move right as you smile? If it does then keep a gentle smile on all the time. Actually this just the right thing to do in any case. Keep the lips and cheeks away from the teeth or else they will be working against your tongue in trying to make your mouth bigger and even.
Making yourself a Starecta rectifier (cheap to do) will give your body the experience of stability otherwise than in a deep unilateral clench. The idea is that your body realigns with the balance achieved by the rectifier. Even a short while where the weight is going into both sides of the jaw (especially the side of the jaw that you don’t use for chewing and clenching, and merely ask to support the weight of your head on the pillow) will be quite instructive to you and your body. I wish I had made more use of this tool. For you it should be added that it is helpful in lengthening the back of the neck. Yes your backward maxilla and cheeks make your chin seem prominent, but even so things will look better if you can remove the backward tilt of your head.
Unless the photo is flipped, the one in which you are smiling seems to show your mandible askew in the other direction. Does your mandible move right as you smile? If it does then keep a gentle smile on all the time. Actually this just the right thing to do in any case. Keep the lips and cheeks away from the teeth or else they will be working against your tongue in trying to make your mouth bigger and even.
Making yourself a Starecta rectifier (cheap to do) will give your body the experience of stability otherwise than in a deep unilateral clench. The idea is that your body realigns with the balance achieved by the rectifier. Even a short while where the weight is going into both sides of the jaw (especially the side of the jaw that you don’t use for chewing and clenching, and merely ask to support the weight of your head on the pillow) will be quite instructive to you and your body. I wish I had made more use of this tool. For you it should be added that it is helpful in lengthening the back of the neck. Yes your backward maxilla and cheeks make your chin seem prominent, but even so things will look better if you can remove the backward tilt of your head.
Not quite sure about the wayward mandible thing--I'm bad at spotting these things on my face. And admittedly for a while I think my photo program was on "flip"...just don't know
https://imgur.com/a/DuF6Knu is another reference.
How do I do the DIY Starecta thing? And clearly the website is scam-rific so I'm assuming the rectifier is supposed to be more of a temporary guide for proper posture rather than a solution--seems like it might form a dependency or something.
Thanks for the feedback!
Let me make another detour too...
About the neck forward...well backward...posture issue problem, as well as the general tension.
I do get a lot of neck/shoulder pain and tension and mouth issue. Almost constantly tbh.
And...weird thing. Most of the time I feel quite a bit of distress and soreness in the area around my mouth, especially above and the area below my cheekbones.
When I feel my worse I feel so much tension in the area that I can't help grimacing.
If I talk or smile a lot...about 10 minutes, for example, the nasolabial lines deepen and the area just gets incredibly sore and red. Not sure if this is normal or not because this feeling just lasts for 4~ hours afterwards.
Mewing might have improved my jaw pain issue...might be imagining things though. The tongue does feel very uncomfortable and sore. Is it something I should just troop through?
Anyways...what types of things can I do beyond gentle smiling (not sure how that works) and ball-massage could I do to correct these positional quirks? Will basic neck-correcting exercises work safely? Also for the myofunctional therapy...is Dr. Yoon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65tlxqQ4A3A, a good choice?
Honestly I think I've had a lot of stress and tension and pain in my entire face - especially the lower cheeks, mouth and eye area, and jaw for a very long time and honestly I'm not even sure how to manage it. It's extremely depressing because I know it leads to stuff like long-term damage and premature aging...I just don't know what to do.
I think you need to focus on rotating the maxilla to a better position to help with the pursed lips, breathing etc and I believe there is also an emotional component to that tension in the mouth area, which can be released through myofunctional therapy and better rotation of the maxilla, this is what worked for me anyway. Take a ball, run it over your face, press hard in to the places that hurt especially. That's for the emotional release. Have your occupit raised and do Mckenzie chin tucks as much as possible, and for reference I wouldn't say your profile shot shows a straight enough posture: raise that occupit.
Also I will comment on your history of trauma in the hopes it helps. A primary attachment figure will go a long way toward preventing negative emotion states. Shame is one of the worst things for posture. By going to Incel communities and reading the negative things about women, possibly this is contributing to your shame. Instead you can do proactive things like the mewing, posture correction, mindfulness, and connection building for the negative emotional states and achieving correct functionality (actually these two goals go hand in hand as well).
Okay I'll incorporate these exercises into my regimen. Wait so...what other ways do I focus on rotating the maxilla? Not sure if the stress release and getting rid of the pursed lips will help enough.
Trauma...I don't think so, pretty much everything I believe in is a fact. As of now I want to have a well-rounded regimen that I can trust to follow for the next few months because if nothing else, I don't want to feel trapped in my own body.
I think you need to focus on rotating the maxilla to a better position to help with the pursed lips, breathing etc and I believe there is also an emotional component to that tension in the mouth area, which can be released through myofunctional therapy and better rotation of the maxilla, this is what worked for me anyway. Take a ball, run it over your face, press hard in to the places that hurt especially. That's for the emotional release. Have your occupit raised and do Mckenzie chin tucks as much as possible, and for reference I wouldn't say your profile shot shows a straight enough posture: raise that occupit.
Also I will comment on your history of trauma in the hopes it helps. A primary attachment figure will go a long way toward preventing negative emotion states. Shame is one of the worst things for posture. By going to Incel communities and reading the negative things about women, possibly this is contributing to your shame. Instead you can do proactive things like the mewing, posture correction, mindfulness, and connection building for the negative emotional states and achieving correct functionality (actually these two goals go hand in hand as well).
Okay I'll incorporate these exercises into my regimen. Wait so...what other ways do I focus on rotating the maxilla? Not sure if the stress release and getting rid of the pursed lips will help enough.
Trauma...I don't think so, pretty much everything I believe in is a fact. As of now I want to have a well-rounded regimen that I can trust to follow for the next few months because if nothing else, I don't want to feel trapped in my own body.
Here's a guide with more information.
I will be blunt: the sooner you accept the responsibility of building your own personal routine to help you get well, the better. Your question was answered in the first paragraph of my post you quoted, and you can use the search function for additional information if need be. Months of effort... if only. Anyway, my tone may sound harsh, but I hope you understand I'm feeling put off by your helplessness, which feels like an effort to recruit me to enable you. Please feel free to ask for advice and you will likely get some tips on your situation, but do keep in mind that these endeavours discussed on this forum are experimental and require research to discern what is trustworthy, with input from professionals and other interested parties as the situation warrants and permits. Best of luck to you, however you decide to proceed.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
I think you need to focus on rotating the maxilla to a better position to help with the pursed lips, breathing etc and I believe there is also an emotional component to that tension in the mouth area, which can be released through myofunctional therapy and better rotation of the maxilla, this is what worked for me anyway. Take a ball, run it over your face, press hard in to the places that hurt especially. That's for the emotional release. Have your occupit raised and do Mckenzie chin tucks as much as possible, and for reference I wouldn't say your profile shot shows a straight enough posture: raise that occupit.
Also I will comment on your history of trauma in the hopes it helps. A primary attachment figure will go a long way toward preventing negative emotion states. Shame is one of the worst things for posture. By going to Incel communities and reading the negative things about women, possibly this is contributing to your shame. Instead you can do proactive things like the mewing, posture correction, mindfulness, and connection building for the negative emotional states and achieving correct functionality (actually these two goals go hand in hand as well).
Okay I'll incorporate these exercises into my regimen. Wait so...what other ways do I focus on rotating the maxilla? Not sure if the stress release and getting rid of the pursed lips will help enough.
Trauma...I don't think so, pretty much everything I believe in is a fact. As of now I want to have a well-rounded regimen that I can trust to follow for the next few months because if nothing else, I don't want to feel trapped in my own body.
Here's a guide with more information.
I will be blunt: the sooner you accept the responsibility of building your own personal routine to help you get well, the better. Your question was answered in the first paragraph of my post you quoted, and you can use the search function for additional information if need be. Months of effort... if only. Anyway, my tone may sound harsh, but I hope you understand I'm feeling put off by your helplessness, which feels like an effort to recruit me to enable you. Please feel free to ask for advice and you will likely get some tips on your situation, but do keep in mind that these endeavours discussed on this forum are experimental and require research to discern what is trustworthy, with input from professionals and other interested parties as the situation warrants and permits. Best of luck to you, however you decide to proceed.
Believe it or not I've already established somewhat of a routine beyond what's mentioned here after doing quite a bit of research weeks ago.
I'm the type to over-research and optimize the heck out of things on my lonesome...trying to cull the habit by getting some additional feedback first--after all, some people here might have a better understanding of the available techniques or resources, having been here for so much longer in community. Not sure if I'm wrong to believe so. But anyways, yeah, I'll try being more mindful of the questions I ask here...it's a flaw of mine to be too frank.
Oh and I apologize--I was gonna implement your strategies but I wasn't expecting those things to be the most important actions to rotate the maxilla. Still trying to properly conceptualize how these systems affect one another technically.
@Wildernessy don't worry you're not being too frank and feel free to ask questions. I just don't want to engage in handholding which is my boundary. Anyway to be clear my suggestions were just what's worked for me in case it helps. Also, reading your OP again, I recalled reading about a type of massage therapy called Rolfing which is supposedly helpful for body alignment, and I read a testimony with someone who, after the nasal massage part, didn't suffer from sinus issues anymore.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
@Wildernessy don't worry you're not being too frank and feel free to ask questions. I just don't want to engage in handholding which is my boundary. Anyway to be clear my suggestions were just what's worked for me in case it helps. Also, reading your OP again, I recalled reading about a type of massage therapy called Rolfing which is supposedly helpful for body alignment, and I read a testimony with someone who, after the nasal massage part, didn't suffer from sinus issues anymore.
...Before I didn't think of it because it was a pretty silly thing to ask, but...pursed lips...what do you exactly mean by that? Is it like, uh, holding the lips inward and tightly? I always thought my lips look weird in some pictures...sometimes even different. Smaller. The therapy might help but may I have an example of pursed versus normal lips? Would be easier to figure out how to position my lips.
Still trying to figure out why my cheek/zygoma/eye area is so sore all the time--then it starts burning if I laugh or talk for a few seconds or more and stays like that for several minutes. The ball thing doesn't really help there, though when my jaw acted up for the last time weeks ago, it helped a ton. I was right...even vaguely mewing (still doubting whether or not I can do it right with my odd mouth composition) helped my jaw pain a ton...only touching the hinge area is when I experience a lot of pain, but otherwise my jaw feels alright. The orthdonist's theory was that an uneven amount of stress was being put on the left (problematic) side so I think mewing did even out things.
And for the discussion of my thread...I might be imagining things, but it's almost like my top row of teeth is wider than the bottom. Slight overhang in the front (nothing too crazy), with the top molars seemingly sticking out around the bottoms. Normal? I have no idea. The weirdest thing is that I noticed that the back row of teeth (not the very last molar) fit perfectly. Astonishingly perfectly. But the rest of the teeth, not so much.
I ended up not being able to go to a joint pain specialist so...yeah, I'm happy I made progress with my pain! Breathing issues...well...I went off of my Sudafed and I'm breathing real nicely today; better than normal. Again I'm not sure if it's the mewing though I'm optimistic.
It's only been three weeks of very awkward mewing...I'll probably check to see any differences in two months. Still crossing my figures that the zygoma/cheeks come forward, there's more orbital support, and the gonion angle improves. And of course, the proper rotation. I'm also debating whether or not I should do open mouth chewing...could be problematic considering my strong jaw.
@Wildernessy sorry for delay in reply, I was on vacation. By pursed lips I mean that by my judgement there seems to be tension in this area, commonly I see this in mouth breathers as they get older but I don't know the exact reason why. Do you have an overjet? For the ball myofascial release, you might need more time or a better tool to use, perhaps even your knuckle would apply more or better pressure. The guide says expect results in a few months with a daily routine, my face muscle strains took 6 months to resolve and now I just do it when I remember but ymmv. Glad to hear the pain is lessening and mewing seems to be helping!
Eta to my eyes it doesn't seem your jaw is too strong, I think it's just forward head posture makes it seem that way
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcI8CvoFxfQ best video i believe for proper posture theres a second one as well. you may not have a perfect bite your problem at least from what youve shown is pretty decent already just work on ur tongue posture
@Wildernessy sorry for delay in reply, I was on vacation. By pursed lips I mean that by my judgement there seems to be tension in this area, commonly I see this in mouth breathers as they get older but I don't know the exact reason why. Do you have an overjet? For the ball myofascial release, you might need more time or a better tool to use, perhaps even your knuckle would apply more or better pressure. The guide says expect results in a few months with a daily routine, my face muscle strains took 6 months to resolve and now I just do it when I remember but ymmv. Glad to hear the pain is lessening and mewing seems to be helping!
Eta to my eyes it doesn't seem your jaw is too strong, I think it's just forward head posture makes it seem that way
Yup, I think I might have an overjet...even the upper lip juts out more. Seems like the top row of teeth is just larger than the bottom in some places. Anyways, the massage does help quite a bit--I'm being quite patient with it.
Oh, and proper posture before/afters. I've been doing this around a month, I think?
https://imgur.com/a/0CgGwDx I doubt anything changed besides the forward head thing buuut I wanted to track my progress nonetheless.
At this point I think I accepted my jaw, though I do hope my zygoma gets less flat+my cheekbones move forward, I get more orbital support, and my face shortens a bit in the long-run. Even if I only see progress two years down the line, that'd be enough for me tbh.
Emotionally I'm kinda chill now. Thanks for the support!
@Wildernessy sorry for delay in reply, I was on vacation. By pursed lips I mean that by my judgement there seems to be tension in this area, commonly I see this in mouth breathers as they get older but I don't know the exact reason why. Do you have an overjet? For the ball myofascial release, you might need more time or a better tool to use, perhaps even your knuckle would apply more or better pressure. The guide says expect results in a few months with a daily routine, my face muscle strains took 6 months to resolve and now I just do it when I remember but ymmv. Glad to hear the pain is lessening and mewing seems to be helping!
Eta to my eyes it doesn't seem your jaw is too strong, I think it's just forward head posture makes it seem that way
I'm sorry for replying again, but I think I do really need help this time and you seem to have the better understanding here. Regardless of me practicing some of your input (such as the massage and gentle smile) a lot of tension and pain has developed around the upper lip/nasolabial/lower cheek area--almost like it 's being sucked in.
Moreover, I might be imagining things but it's almost like the nasolabial folds have become much more pronounced and sunken. Really not sure what's going on here and some feedback would be welcome.
@Wildernessy sorry for delay in reply, I was on vacation. By pursed lips I mean that by my judgement there seems to be tension in this area, commonly I see this in mouth breathers as they get older but I don't know the exact reason why. Do you have an overjet? For the ball myofascial release, you might need more time or a better tool to use, perhaps even your knuckle would apply more or better pressure. The guide says expect results in a few months with a daily routine, my face muscle strains took 6 months to resolve and now I just do it when I remember but ymmv. Glad to hear the pain is lessening and mewing seems to be helping!
Eta to my eyes it doesn't seem your jaw is too strong, I think it's just forward head posture makes it seem that way
I'm sorry for replying again, but I think I do really need help this time and you seem to have the better understanding here. Regardless of me practicing some of your input (such as the massage and gentle smile) a lot of tension and pain has developed around the upper lip/nasolabial/lower cheek area--almost like it 's being sucked in.
Moreover, I might be imagining things but it's almost like the nasolabial folds have become much more pronounced and sunken. Really not sure what's going on here and some feedback would be welcome.
No worries, do you have a new pic since these symptoms developed?
Nasolabial folds becoming more pronounced has occurred with me when my maxilla rotated to a better position and the mandible needed to swing along (it takes a few days, for me). Mew alluded to this in one of his videos (sorry I forget which one exactly) where he said that he's become quite good at being able to tell when the maxilla and mandible were going to upswing: he could see it in the nasolabial area. If this is the case then it's a temporary condition.
However it's so early in your Mewing journey that I'm wondering if it's something else. Could be many things... lack of restful sleep, stress, poor diet/digestion. The usual suspects. If you're not open-mouth chewing, I'd consider experimenting with it because I've found chewing in general helps discharge stress/tension (in moderation) and some users here, including myself, have found that this style of chewing will somehow make the nasolabial fold area less pronounced. We aren't yet sure why this occurs... I speculate it has something to do with how the muscles are used differently.
Overall it sounds like you're experiencing tension for some reason(s), and I wouldn't be surprised if you have oromandibular dystonia/bruxism/TMD. A tanaka face massage could be helpful here (supposed to be helpful for sinus issues, too, and may reduce appearance of nasolabial folds). Just a warning that this massage is very powerful on the lymph system and if your lymph isn't moving then it will start and you might develop acne for a time. I use epsom salt to remove and prevent acne but most people will use prescription retin A with quick result. Buccal massage technique may help with tension too and perhaps may even help with mewing because I first heard of this massage method through a Korean cranial bone setting technique called Golki therapy: it's believed the buccal massage assists in moving the cranial bones.
In the long term, Mewing and posture correction will help get to the root of this problem which Mew delves in to on his Youtube channel. This is seemingly an issue in the gut & brain, too... perhaps related to other conditions like this study suggests. Last thought is you could be mewing in such a way to increase this tension. You may need to take a step back and concern yourself less with "hitting all the spots" with your tongue as the sticky suggests and trying to establish a good balance between the force of the tongue and force on the teeth while Mewing. The so-called "butterfly-bite". Once that's mastered then work on getting the posterior 1/3 up and correct swallow technique if that is a roadblock for you currently.
ETA: Also I forgot to mention that your posture correction efforts may be causing tension as described here. Just raising the occupit is what to do generally; the McKenzie chin tuck while sleeping that some of us do here is advanced. Mew says to pop a McKenzie chin tuck every time you open a door, etc but it may be too difficult for now, and is possibly a source of tension.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
It looks as if you hold your lower incisors in what I would call a deep bite, up and behind your upper incisors. Your lower jaw is set back, you describe the bite of your back molars as being aligned, and the muscle of your chin is strongly developed. When I adopt a deep bite I feel something of the inward pressure you describe. Try things to encourage your incisors to bite tip to tip: bite with them on a folded towel and pull gently forward; try to bite and tear food with them; chew with them on food or a Jawzrcise. I expect your mandible could do with releasing and swinging forward, and your lower incisors could do with tipping out a bit. Your upper lip seems properly relaxed, your lower lip (and chin) needs to do the same. With the mouth and jaws relaxed In this way I think there is properly a downward pressure right underneath the nostrils and up the side of the nose, but it should pleasant and act to make the rising of the cheeks into a smile almost irresistible. This does not sound like what you are experiencing.
From your description of laughing and talking causing pain I would guess you have developed some severe muscle tension from the postural issues with your jaw. You wrote of massage and I saw a comment mentioning Rolfing. I have done very hard massage on myself. I have never produced a bruise, surprisingly. I apply hard pressure (fixed pressure like for a pressure pointj to the masseter all along under the zygomatic arch, particularly at that point where there is a notch in the zygomatic process of the temporal bone. I apply hard static pressure to supra orbital foramen. I do firm circular massage in the infra orbital foramen. I do hard sweeps backward to release the muscles above the ear that cover the temporal bones. I do gentle alternating pressure (left side, right side) on the sphenoid bone just above the zygomatic arch. I am not offering this as theory or a recommendation specific to you, more as an illustration of some of the things I got to by exploring. I recommend you go exploring and if it feels tense it shouldn’t be, so work on it. I do identify with the things you descrbe so the places I mention would be worth checking.
The other places to look for unhelpful tension to release are in the neck and shoulders. You can be similarly robust in applying pressure. With the neck you are not just dealing with the tight muscles at the back that a forward head posture will have produced. A wonky tight jaw will likely have produced imbalances and tightness in the scalenes. You should do a little learning on these and how to massage them because they can feel a bit too central to be massaging and in my case a little too tight to even be muscles. Massaging them is rewarding, but it is best to proceed with caution and knowledge. I don’t think I could let someone else work on them however expert they said they were.
Thanks for the detailed reply!
To clarify, I have a missing tooth or two on the bottom. Tbh I'll just post my teeth. I didn't want to because I realized that they're a lot more messed up than I thought, but it might be relevant. https://imgur.com/a/N78HCwv One is of touching my incisors tip to tip which...well, I think it looks a bit off. It's up to you to decide if it's proper enough.
And I checked again and the back molars aren't aligned. I can make them touch if I angle my jaw properly, but the top back molars extends half beyond the bottom. Seems like some of the teeth are asymmetrical too. Half-formed. I'm not sure if your advice changes based off of that.
I'm gonna test some things out and see what works...some of the rolfing worked to clear up my sinuses too so I'm pretty enthusiastic about what directed massaging can do.
Honestly...it could be another issue. Seems like the sunken look keeps on coming and going away (despite consistent and tracked hydration levels), though I think the pain beneath the zygomatic bones is pretty consistent. I was just putting together a 1 year before/after for my skincare progress to post online along with some tips when I realized that there really wasn't much of a change--and I compared similar pictures, so looks like nothing bad really happened.
I managed to catch only one picture that fully captured the "sunken in" issue when it got bad. The first one. https://imgur.com/a/uS2b0Mf I've never seen something like this in my face--not even in that lighting/location/angle. It does also seem more sunken on that side than the other as well.
I'm aware of the gut/mind connection, though aren't sure how far it goes. I always had gut issues. Heck, on the 3 days of this year I felt actually good and alive for once (my face even looked better, I got pictures of it) my gut issues were gone. Real weird stuff. As for restful sleep I only had one this year...and the factors that accompanied that were extremely bizarre. I'm gonna talk to my doc about potential issues like sleep apnea. After all, I'm still constantly yawning and my blood flow is very poor. Thanks for reminding me about the issues on the periphery.
Anyways I'm now gonna get into the open mouth chewing 100%! Before I was kinda spooked by the idea of my jaw becoming stronger/more forward from it, but I realize that it's fairly normal, it's just my semi-flat zygoma and odd head posture that made it seem strong. The tanaka massage sounds cool too...excited to discover whether or not it does anything for the lymph nodes.
Also I did try the Mckenzie sleep thing, no pillow, once and...actually I think I had a relatively decent sleep and the neck tension went away. I'm gonna probably incorporate that for a week now.
The photos were helpful. I think they will be helpful to you. In assessing what we want improved we all tend to focus overly much on outward appearance. It is important but when judging our own appearance we rely on static images, photo or mirror. What other people see is our face in motion. The photos of your face, as other posters have commented, look fine (and are looking better).
What you describe of pain and generally feeling unwell is not ok. It is easy to rebaseline over a period of decline into feeling bad such that one thinks it is ok. You have not quite fallen into that trap, but perhaps only because it sounds like you are feeling truly awful almost all the time. Nonetheless you appear to be a bit much focussed on improving your static appearance. It is the pain in your cheeks that gives me most concern.
I should offer some credentials because after all I have no experience in treating others, all I can do solidly is offer my experience. When I was 21 I had one of my lower incisors extracted. It was twisted and had one night badly chipped at one of the upper incisors. I regret not having found another solution. I lived with the small gap for a year and then, to my greater regret, accepted a dentist’s suggestion that they could pull the teeth together and close the gap, to tidy things up. In the following years I felt pain, such as you describe, in my cheek bones. I did not connect the two things. First because the mandible was so far away. Second because I did not understand that the bones of the face and skull moved, and connectedly. Third because I trusted that the dentists had fixed things, in what was the latest opportunity to move things around.
The photo of your teeth with incisors tip to tip seem to show that your mandible is normally held at a lateral tilt and that your teeth have adapted to this. Consider the muscular effort that achieves this is unbalanced position. I suggest this creates a torsion in your cheeks which causes the tension and pain and over time difference in shape between the two. Consider that by chewing hard gum you may exacerbate rather than improve this imbalance. I suggested the facial massage to release tension and pain, but also to arrest a vicious cycle of torsion in which one stretches the already stretched side to accommodate the pain in the tensed side. I suggested biting down some way or other on the incisors because I believe this goes to help a canted jaw, and does not reinforce imbalance in the way that chewing with one’s normal imbalance will. It may look worse, but I think your tip to tip posture is more right than the other, in terms of the balance of your face.
I wonder if using a myobrace might be helpful to encouraging your lower teeth into better alignment. It is a single tray with tracks for both upper and lower teeth to sit in. Over time it will, like a non-customised Invisalign, encourage your teeth to adopt its shape, a nice arch, and be upright. It also encourages something like tip to tip alignment. Imitation devices of this type can be bought very cheaply on Ebay. I have one here made by Dessa Dental USA. The material it is made of caused me no irritation. I just grew out of it. I bought it to cope with nocturnal relapse.
I am aware that what I talk about is not the orthodoxy of this site, but it is clear to me that what my jaw needed was likely very different from what was needed by someone without serious malocclusion who merely had a narrow palate and a recessed maxilla.
After my orthodontic work I also developed lower back pain, the sacrum. Again I did not make the connection, but we all know from those children’s snake toys that if you wiggle one end of a spine the other moves. I have after many years freed myself from this back pain through improving my jaw. Have a look at yourself in the mirror and see if you have developed any imbalance through your body. If you have, read the Starecta book. It is free to download and describes the process very well. You said you thought the site was ‘scamtastic’. I think he is trying to monetise his idea after years of giving it away. I think the retainer he sells is horribly expensive. For years his suggestion was to make your own retainer with one of those plastic trays such as people use for bleaching and couple of small bricks of mouldable plastic. These two things can be bought very cheaply and YouTube videos show how to do it. It is a bit fiddly which is one reason why I did not make as much use of this technique as I might. If you are dubious about its merit, see the Mike Mew video on it. He is not down on it at all except to express concerns that it might lengthen the face. This should not be your primary concern, yours, in my opinion, should be lateral balance. Consider the Starecta testimonials: they are people who are generally feeling quite dreadful rather than those looking for an aesthetic improvement. My experience of the recifier, apart from finding it fiddly to make, has been that it brings a feeling of peace and ease to my face. I suggested in my last post that you might profitably work on releasing tension and imbalance in the neck and shoulders by massage. Do this to release imbalance in the jaw even if from the neck down you appear perfectly balanced.
The horrid thing is that it is all connected and what I have found is that it is like a spreading limp. When we limp the body does it automatically without consulting us. In my case I think the initial limp, or compenstation, was with the jaw and this in turn demanded corresponding compensations through the body. I would guess that one of your compensations started with conscious and subconscious attempts not show you missing lower teeth and that in this attempt your lips have constricted the teeth of your lower jaw and that your chin was recruited to the task. While the gap in the front teeth remains this may be a difficult habit to undo. The task of undoing all unbalanced habits is too huge to succeed in, but it is worth an attempt. Yoga is how most try.
Lastly, gut and jaw issues went together for me too. You mentioned feeling well on three days last year which is somehow encouraging and to me indicates that what you eat might be causative. I eliminated grains and foods high in lactose. If you are feeling unwell in your gut almost everyday you may need to eliminate something which is equally fundamental to your diet. However, the biggest help to my gut and the general health of my body was daily castor oil packs on my abdomen. Just miraculous stuff and in the face of the haul that fixing one’s jaw involves it offers the prospect of looking much better in a matter of weeks.
Honestly...it could be another issue. Seems like the sunken look keeps on coming and going away (despite consistent and tracked hydration levels), though I think the pain beneath the zygomatic bones is pretty consistent. I was just putting together a 1 year before/after for my skincare progress to post online along with some tips when I realized that there really wasn't much of a change--and I compared similar pictures, so looks like nothing bad really happened.
I managed to catch only one picture that fully captured the "sunken in" issue when it got bad. The first one. https://imgur.com/a/uS2b0Mf I've never seen something like this in my face--not even in that lighting/location/angle. It does also seem more sunken on that side than the other as well.
I'm aware of the gut/mind connection, though aren't sure how far it goes. I always had gut issues. Heck, on the 3 days of this year I felt actually good and alive for once (my face even looked better, I got pictures of it) my gut issues were gone. Real weird stuff. As for restful sleep I only had one this year...and the factors that accompanied that were extremely bizarre. I'm gonna talk to my doc about potential issues like sleep apnea. After all, I'm still constantly yawning and my blood flow is very poor. Thanks for reminding me about the issues on the periphery.
Anyways I'm now gonna get into the open mouth chewing 100%! Before I was kinda spooked by the idea of my jaw becoming stronger/more forward from it, but I realize that it's fairly normal, it's just my semi-flat zygoma and odd head posture that made it seem strong. The tanaka massage sounds cool too...excited to discover whether or not it does anything for the lymph nodes.
Also I did try the Mckenzie sleep thing, no pillow, once and...actually I think I had a relatively decent sleep and the neck tension went away. I'm gonna probably incorporate that for a week now.
The sunken eye thing could be so many things, yes... I hope it resolves for you. I saw a post on here today about someone with incorrect tongue posture and cited sunken eyes as a side effect, so be sure to evaluate tongue position. This can be quite tricky, especially when starting out, and then there is the need to adjust tongue posture as you go because expansion will allow more space for the tongue to occupy the palate and then permit increasingly better tongue and body posture: you adapt to what your body and mouth permit as you progress. I would think that mewing, done correctly, would either eventually help here if bone building would aid this issue for you, or not effect it negatively at least. Maybe the eye massage from the tanaka massage would help if puffiness/slow moving lymph is behind this. As for gut health, yes, I had the same sort of experience this year, with having my gut health seemingly completely restored for a few days. This is one big rabbit hole that I've fallen down and hope to figure out, but it's not easy to get consistent results seems, and then it's all too easy to relapse... lately I've been investigating a condition called SIBO or short intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Soon I'll start a new protocol by Dr. Nemechek. Seems simple enough and worth a try because it resonates with me, though it doesn't seem to hold all the answers. Can't use the Rifaxmin, but I can try comparable herbal products which supposedly are at least just as good. I think maybe my efforts are starting to pay off as I've been having restorative-feeling sleep with dreams for a while now. Anyway, I know it's tough to be in this spot and hard to climb out of. If breathing issues/sleep apnea are contributing to poor health then mewing is going to eventually help with this. Some of the sleep apnea solutions are bandaids for the palate being too narrow and/or jaw set too far back. Castor oil packs are a good idea too, I should get in to that again. I like to put it on my eyelids before bed as well, seems to help a bit. It's what I use for face massages as well.
As for Starecta, it does seem to help people, and there are many testimonials to review of people in deep dysfunction who became better with splint therapy and palate expansion. I have noticed what I believe is face lengthening in some before and afters, notably Plato's who is affiliated with them and claims it resolved his scoliosis. Mew has some reservations re: splint therapy he mentions here. But whatever you decide, joining up some dystonia groups on Facebook, especially the Bio-medical dystonia one run by Mazza, would probably be a big help to you or anyone else here for that matter: I like to read about people's experiences and their stretches, exercises, practices, and the specialists/researchers etc that help them along with their splint therapy. Mazza also says you can just use a clear retainer with the polymorph. I'm also researching there about the use of diy ALF to hopefully completely resolve asymmetry, as I may have hit the limits of how much mewing can correct this issue. I began mewing a while ago, before splint therapy was much discussed, so over several years I resolved issues with Mewing to a point where I'm jaw and face pain-free and correct posture, but I suspect that as long as I have asymmetry remaining then I'm at risk for symptoms re-developing or coming on after experiencing some sort of trauma, such as the car accident I was in that brought on bruxism and forward head posture (though my palate is quite wide now which is said to be a big help in stabilizing the skull).
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
I should emphasise that I am suggesting things that might help with Mewing not replace it.
I should emphasise that I am suggesting things that might help with Mewing not replace it.
I know, though right now I'm a bit too scared that I've been doing it wrong to do it.
Honestly...it could be another issue. Seems like the sunken look keeps on coming and going away (despite consistent and tracked hydration levels), though I think the pain beneath the zygomatic bones is pretty consistent. I was just putting together a 1 year before/after for my skincare progress to post online along with some tips when I realized that there really wasn't much of a change--and I compared similar pictures, so looks like nothing bad really happened.
I managed to catch only one picture that fully captured the "sunken in" issue when it got bad. The first one. https://imgur.com/a/uS2b0Mf I've never seen something like this in my face--not even in that lighting/location/angle. It does also seem more sunken on that side than the other as well.
I'm aware of the gut/mind connection, though aren't sure how far it goes. I always had gut issues. Heck, on the 3 days of this year I felt actually good and alive for once (my face even looked better, I got pictures of it) my gut issues were gone. Real weird stuff. As for restful sleep I only had one this year...and the factors that accompanied that were extremely bizarre. I'm gonna talk to my doc about potential issues like sleep apnea. After all, I'm still constantly yawning and my blood flow is very poor. Thanks for reminding me about the issues on the periphery.
Anyways I'm now gonna get into the open mouth chewing 100%! Before I was kinda spooked by the idea of my jaw becoming stronger/more forward from it, but I realize that it's fairly normal, it's just my semi-flat zygoma and odd head posture that made it seem strong. The tanaka massage sounds cool too...excited to discover whether or not it does anything for the lymph nodes.
Also I did try the Mckenzie sleep thing, no pillow, once and...actually I think I had a relatively decent sleep and the neck tension went away. I'm gonna probably incorporate that for a week now.
The sunken eye thing could be so many things, yes... I hope it resolves for you. I saw a post on here today about someone with incorrect tongue posture and cited sunken eyes as a side effect, so be sure to evaluate tongue position. This can be quite tricky, especially when starting out, and then there is the need to adjust tongue posture as you go because expansion will allow more space for the tongue to occupy the palate and then permit increasingly better tongue and body posture: you adapt to what your body and mouth permit as you progress. I would think that mewing, done correctly, would either eventually help here if bone building would aid this issue for you, or not effect it negatively at least. Maybe the eye massage from the tanaka massage would help if puffiness/slow moving lymph is behind this. As for gut health, yes, I had the same sort of experience this year, with having my gut health seemingly completely restored for a few days. This is one big rabbit hole that I've fallen down and hope to figure out, but it's not easy to get consistent results seems, and then it's all too easy to relapse... lately I've been investigating a condition called SIBO or short intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Soon I'll start a new protocol by Dr. Nemechek. Seems simple enough and worth a try because it resonates with me, though it doesn't seem to hold all the answers. Can't use the Rifaxmin, but I can try comparable herbal products which supposedly are at least just as good. I think maybe my efforts are starting to pay off as I've been having restorative-feeling sleep with dreams for a while now. Anyway, I know it's tough to be in this spot and hard to climb out of. If breathing issues/sleep apnea are contributing to poor health then mewing is going to eventually help with this. Some of the sleep apnea solutions are bandaids for the palate being too narrow and/or jaw set too far back. Castor oil packs are a good idea too, I should get in to that again. I like to put it on my eyelids before bed as well, seems to help a bit. It's what I use for face massages as well.
As for Starecta, it does seem to help people, and there are many testimonials to review of people in deep dysfunction who became better with splint therapy and palate expansion. I have noticed what I believe is face lengthening in some before and afters, notably Plato's who is affiliated with them and claims it resolved his scoliosis. Mew has some reservations re: splint therapy he mentions here. But whatever you decide, joining up some dystonia groups on Facebook, especially the Bio-medical dystonia one run by Mazza, would probably be a big help to you or anyone else here for that matter: I like to read about people's experiences and their stretches, exercises, practices, and the specialists/researchers etc that help them along with their splint therapy. Mazza also says you can just use a clear retainer with the polymorph. I'm also researching there about the use of diy ALF to hopefully completely resolve asymmetry, as I may have hit the limits of how much mewing can correct this issue. I began mewing a while ago, before splint therapy was much discussed, so over several years I resolved issues with Mewing to a point where I'm jaw and face pain-free and correct posture, but I suspect that as long as I have asymmetry remaining then I'm at risk for symptoms re-developing or coming on after experiencing some sort of trauma, such as the car accident I was in that brought on bruxism and forward head posture (though my palate is quite wide now which is said to be a big help in stabilizing the skull).
Thanks for the tips. I heard some naysayers saying something about a lot of foods actually worsen the issue or increase intestinal permeability which is...unsettling to say the least, though I'm trying not to be paranoid and just eat healthy. I recall that no food aside from meat has made me feel better (and I don't even have an iron deficiency)...so that's quite confusing. Anyway.
More tension has appeared in the upper lip, lips...and this morning I woke up for the first time with nasolabial wrinkles--lines in the skin itself despite my skincare routine...it definitely is a first time thing. I'm not sure if the massages are helping. My lips are kinda stuck in a frown position now because the area just feels very numb/tense. Honestly it almost is like the upper lip is being sucked inward. My tongue is also experienced that weird tension/pain and it's hard to continue mewing--and seeing as though I might be doing it wrong, I've stopped right now...I need to reaccess how to do it properly on my own. See: https://imgur.com/a/vdLVG8Y ...it has gotten to be a bit u-shaped, the nasolabial area. It's rather odd.
Anyways...in you and @Ody's opinion, if I really needed to get professional help for this (including eventual my deep/open/crossbite issue), where should I go? I was recommend to go to a Prosthodontst or something, but yeah, I'm afraid of going to the wrong person--I'm not sure if the tension is something that needs to be resolved first.
I'll look into the dystonia angle as well. My body is often stiff and in pain as well as I figure like restoring the balance there is also key.
Thanks for more feedback!
The photos were helpful. I think they will be helpful to you. In assessing what we want improved we all tend to focus overly much on outward appearance. It is important but when judging our own appearance we rely on static images, photo or mirror. What other people see is our face in motion. The photos of your face, as other posters have commented, look fine (and are looking better).
What you describe of pain and generally feeling unwell is not ok. It is easy to rebaseline over a period of decline into feeling bad such that one thinks it is ok. You have not quite fallen into that trap, but perhaps only because it sounds like you are feeling truly awful almost all the time. Nonetheless you appear to be a bit much focussed on improving your static appearance. It is the pain in your cheeks that gives me most concern.
I should offer some credentials because after all I have no experience in treating others, all I can do solidly is offer my experience. When I was 21 I had one of my lower incisors extracted. It was twisted and had one night badly chipped at one of the upper incisors. I regret not having found another solution. I lived with the small gap for a year and then, to my greater regret, accepted a dentist’s suggestion that they could pull the teeth together and close the gap, to tidy things up. In the following years I felt pain, such as you describe, in my cheek bones. I did not connect the two things. First because the mandible was so far away. Second because I did not understand that the bones of the face and skull moved, and connectedly. Third because I trusted that the dentists had fixed things, in what was the latest opportunity to move things around.
The photo of your teeth with incisors tip to tip seem to show that your mandible is normally held at a lateral tilt and that your teeth have adapted to this. Consider the muscular effort that achieves this is unbalanced position. I suggest this creates a torsion in your cheeks which causes the tension and pain and over time difference in shape between the two. Consider that by chewing hard gum you may exacerbate rather than improve this imbalance. I suggested the facial massage to release tension and pain, but also to arrest a vicious cycle of torsion in which one stretches the already stretched side to accommodate the pain in the tensed side. I suggested biting down some way or other on the incisors because I believe this goes to help a canted jaw, and does not reinforce imbalance in the way that chewing with one’s normal imbalance will. It may look worse, but I think your tip to tip posture is more right than the other, in terms of the balance of your face.
I wonder if using a myobrace might be helpful to encouraging your lower teeth into better alignment. It is a single tray with tracks for both upper and lower teeth to sit in. Over time it will, like a non-customised Invisalign, encourage your teeth to adopt its shape, a nice arch, and be upright. It also encourages something like tip to tip alignment. Imitation devices of this type can be bought very cheaply on Ebay. I have one here made by Dessa Dental USA. The material it is made of caused me no irritation. I just grew out of it. I bought it to cope with nocturnal relapse.
I am aware that what I talk about is not the orthodoxy of this site, but it is clear to me that what my jaw needed was likely very different from what was needed by someone without serious malocclusion who merely had a narrow palate and a recessed maxilla.
After my orthodontic work I also developed lower back pain, the sacrum. Again I did not make the connection, but we all know from those children’s snake toys that if you wiggle one end of a spine the other moves. I have after many years freed myself from this back pain through improving my jaw. Have a look at yourself in the mirror and see if you have developed any imbalance through your body. If you have, read the Starecta book. It is free to download and describes the process very well. You said you thought the site was ‘scamtastic’. I think he is trying to monetise his idea after years of giving it away. I think the retainer he sells is horribly expensive. For years his suggestion was to make your own retainer with one of those plastic trays such as people use for bleaching and couple of small bricks of mouldable plastic. These two things can be bought very cheaply and YouTube videos show how to do it. It is a bit fiddly which is one reason why I did not make as much use of this technique as I might. If you are dubious about its merit, see the Mike Mew video on it. He is not down on it at all except to express concerns that it might lengthen the face. This should not be your primary concern, yours, in my opinion, should be lateral balance. Consider the Starecta testimonials: they are people who are generally feeling quite dreadful rather than those looking for an aesthetic improvement. My experience of the recifier, apart from finding it fiddly to make, has been that it brings a feeling of peace and ease to my face. I suggested in my last post that you might profitably work on releasing tension and imbalance in the neck and shoulders by massage. Do this to release imbalance in the jaw even if from the neck down you appear perfectly balanced.
The horrid thing is that it is all connected and what I have found is that it is like a spreading limp. When we limp the body does it automatically without consulting us. In my case I think the initial limp, or compenstation, was with the jaw and this in turn demanded corresponding compensations through the body. I would guess that one of your compensations started with conscious and subconscious attempts not show you missing lower teeth and that in this attempt your lips have constricted the teeth of your lower jaw and that your chin was recruited to the task. While the gap in the front teeth remains this may be a difficult habit to undo. The task of undoing all unbalanced habits is too huge to succeed in, but it is worth an attempt. Yoga is how most try.
Lastly, gut and jaw issues went together for me too. You mentioned feeling well on three days last year which is somehow encouraging and to me indicates that what you eat might be causative. I eliminated grains and foods high in lactose. If you are feeling unwell in your gut almost everyday you may need to eliminate something which is equally fundamental to your diet. However, the biggest help to my gut and the general health of my body was daily castor oil packs on my abdomen. Just miraculous stuff and in the face of the haul that fixing one’s jaw involves it offers the prospect of looking much better in a matter of weeks.
Tip to tip posture though...it's really hard to do. I can try it for a bit and see how it effects the balance of my face.
I'll probably have to go through the Starecta research gauntlet...I was already told I needed a lefort to fix my long midface, so I'm really on the fence about the lenghtening thing. My self-confidence is already fragile as-is, though seems like something I really need to try to properly understand my issues, and see where to approach them from.
And yup it is pretty horrid...makes me wonder about my body; how much of the tension and pain across it is due to my imbalance. There was one another good day...my birthday. Chilled with a friend all night before on the phone on the dorm's outdoor gravity chair--he sung to me some and played his guitar, and we just joked around a lot. I remember sleeping at 7AM and waking up 4PM as if from a 24 year long nightmare...I had never felt better. My asthma was even gone as well as my bodily pain and mild lethargy/numbness. I had energy, could think, I could talk very well whereas before I struggled to keep up. I don't know if it was the friend, the amount of time I went without eating, or the time I slept or what but it was quite a change. It still bugs me to this day...the difference was startling. Too bad I haven't felt like that since; it happened, like, 4 months ago. I think the one other time besides the 3 days was when I had my desert school trip and got 2 hours of sleep in howling canyon's wind. Felt like million dollars the morning after, full of energy...I'm still shaking my head at how silly it was. My body is simply ridiculous.
I managed to maybe negate some of the issues through magnesium and anxiolytics--though right now I think I'm gonna have to encourage my doctor to get the food allergy testing done. He's quite stubborn, unfortunately. Me? I just wanna clear out that possibility so I can go onto others.
And thank you for telling me your story--it never ceases to amaze me how these things can be interconnected. The spreading limp, the tell-tale pain beneath the cheeks. At least now I'm more aware so maybe I can still fix these things before they get horribly bad.
Edit: Wait--interesting thing. I did try open mouth chewing for the steak I just had (exploring fully how meat affects me) and...the pain and the tension of the morning did fade 50%. Upper lip still feels tight as if being sucked in but wow, it does feel better. Hm. I'm not sure if it is a bad thing.
‘If in doubt, don’t’ is not a bad principle. The body is a complicated thing and working out how to proceed to fix it is extremely difficult when you are not feeling well. Your upside is that you are addressing this quite fundamentally quite early in life. I carried on blindly for 30 years taking stupid advice while things got worse.
I have never had the discipline to keep a food diary, but they can help you spot problems. Your observations on the days you felt good seem interesting. Not eating (intermittent fasting when you do it on purpose). Gravity chair. Desert.
I would guess that diet and alignment will go a long way to fixing you. Interesting what you write about chewing. I think it is to proceed is by trying things and seeing if they work for you, bearing in mind that good things often take time to bring positive results.
Meat is quite good and contains substances like minerals, amino acids etc which help us to think in healthy ways and contribute to general wellness (to really over-simplify it). I'm not sure who you need to go to but I would strongly suggest against closing any spaces from your extractions. Some dentists will want to bring all the teeth together to make things look more aesthetic, but this has a destabilising effect on the skull and could worsen your symptoms and possibly create new ones (and I've seen many accounts of this). Better to retain the spaces and get implants at some point. There's conflicting opinions here... some believe, including Mew, that implants mess with Mewing efforts, others claim they had no issue. But whoever you go to, you could take your treatment plan to here to discuss, and then should get some opinions to help with making a decision on how to proceed.
The things you're describing with less eye support, nasal labial folds, could be a result of so many things... it's so hard to say what it could be exactly. If it's stemming from the tongue posture, there is possibly area of your palate insufficiently getting support needed. If you need to take a break to reflect, it's fine and I believe normal for people that have to work through dysfunction. I worked through dysfunction too and took a few breaks when I felt the need to. There's a lot of info to wade through and decisions to make, and then working against the dysfunction to eventually overcome it, all the while (ideally) believing in the process, is no easy feat. The suction hold Mew describes is very helpful here for attaining correct tongue posture as it really assists in getting the tongue hitting the areas it needs to. I think hands down it's the most helpful technique that's helped me Mew correctly. Then be sure to consider the posterior 3rd and the tip of the tongue being on the spot: from there and with a suction hold, the middle of the tongue should hopefully take care of itself.
I also want to comment on the lefort mention. Just guessing here but it seems this is some opinion obtained from someone "lookism" informed. Whenever you are able to correct your posture, when your body and mind permit that, you should find that this lefort suggestion was ridiculous because this is when the maxilla moves to a better placement and the midface shortens (which is not just an aesthetic result, but functionally speaking, is related to the opening of more airway space). Unfortunately there are maliciously envious people out there who hate people like us who are motivated to better our situation and improve our health... they see this precious healing ability and they want to take it away and destroy us. They delight in the misfortune of others and that is my read on someone who would make such a suggestion to you. Without a partner you're especially vulnerable to these kinds of predatory people. Your energy could be really drained and this can sabotage your healing efforts by encouraging learned helplessness belief and apathy. Zinc with the magnesium is helpful in these situations where a shift from emotional to more rational thinking with an accompanied calming effect that helps with anxiety can be very helpful with mewing and general health improvement.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
Hi again guys! I took a break to focus on the mewing basics according to what you showed me; finally managed to fix the back third and even, sometimes, relax the tension around my lips. As I maybe mentioned the lips look a bit better...of course sometimes they purse painfully again and it's near impossible to get them out, but generally my lips are chill and feel good. The under cheek pain comes and goes. I open mouth chew casually too.
My TMJ has rarely been an issue. I suspect that in high school when it was horrifyingly painful was when it was growing the most.
And...I'm not sure if anything has changed or if the pics just are morphing my face, or if it's just the different tongue posture that has changed my face's position a bit. I'm not too bent up about it, but I'll post regardless.
Getting the posterior third up can be quite difficult so congrats on doing that so fast. It's one of the more important aspects of mewing imo. If it's hard to do it gets easier to the point where it happens without thinking about it eventually. Do your lips contract involuntarily? They do look better, I agree, and hard to say for sure but your posture improved as well? Also sounds like encouraging things are happening, less pain and easy going approach, feeling happy for you
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
Wait--I happened upon your posts on a pulling thread. Something about getting a monkey face..
...and then it hit me, what I have is literally that and that's what that one guy that said I was a 3/10 pointed out as well. You said something about it making you seem aged so...me at 24? That probably explains why people irl said I looked old/middle-aged/haggard, or at least a part of it.
Of course this face gets worse when I feel bad, but generally for virtue of my facial structure, it was always there--it just seems to have worsened. I.e., there's actually fine lines that run down from the folds and down my lips. Here's a picture: https://imgur.com/a/f4nAzSk It doesn't really show up that well, but just imagine that it looks worse in real.
How has your M.F. changed since then? I was tempted to make another thread because it's not that well documented of a thing where mewing is concerned but stopped myself.
I guess I can continue open mouth chewing. Invest in some hard gum, etc. There is a slight chance that my face really does contract involuntarily and this also ruins things...I did note yesterday when I was in pain - mainly body aches and really terrible chest pain, fatigue/malaise, and asthma - my face stiffened up a ton and the fold/mouth area got mysteriously worse. Moreover, that it was very hard to move my face away from the frown. There was a lot of pain in the upper lip and folds. I'm not quite sure what was causing it other than I recall that another time I felt this way, someone I knew said I looked like I was dying. I just have no idea why it shows up on my face so much.
Wait--I happened upon your posts on a pulling thread. Something about getting a monkey face..
...and then it hit me, what I have is literally that and that's what that one guy that said I was a 3/10 pointed out as well. You said something about it making you seem aged so...me at 24? That probably explains why people irl said I looked old/middle-aged/haggard, or at least a part of it.
Of course this face gets worse when I feel bad, but generally for virtue of my facial structure, it was always there--it just seems to have worsened. I.e., there's actually fine lines that run down from the folds and down my lips. Here's a picture: https://imgur.com/a/f4nAzSk It doesn't really show up that well, but just imagine that it looks worse in real.
How has your M.F. changed since then? I was tempted to make another thread because it's not that well documented of a thing where mewing is concerned but stopped myself.
I guess I can continue open mouth chewing. Invest in some hard gum, etc. There is a slight chance that my face really does contract involuntarily and this also ruins things...I did note yesterday when I was in pain - mainly body aches and really terrible chest pain, fatigue/malaise, and asthma - my face stiffened up a ton and the fold/mouth area got mysteriously worse. Moreover, that it was very hard to move my face away from the frown. There was a lot of pain in the upper lip and folds. I'm not quite sure what was causing it other than I recall that another time I felt this way, someone I knew said I looked like I was dying. I just have no idea why it shows up on my face so much.
Would you consider yourself an emotionally aware person? Do you tend to hold on to or restrict unpleasant emotions? Your issue - based on both your description of how it worsens when you feel bad, and the way it makes you look - sounds like it could be subconscious emotional tension that has become chronic. Your particular expression resembles that of bitterness
which is the result of engaging the levator labii
The labii and the brow muscles indirectly support each other, which is why activating the former will eventually result in the latter joining in to the effort.
Do you recognize any hidden bitterness in you? Do these muscles feel sore to you? Are you able to fully relax them?
Wait--I happened upon your posts on a pulling thread. Something about getting a monkey face..
...and then it hit me, what I have is literally that and that's what that one guy that said I was a 3/10 pointed out as well. You said something about it making you seem aged so...me at 24? That probably explains why people irl said I looked old/middle-aged/haggard, or at least a part of it.
Of course this face gets worse when I feel bad, but generally for virtue of my facial structure, it was always there--it just seems to have worsened. I.e., there's actually fine lines that run down from the folds and down my lips. Here's a picture: https://imgur.com/a/f4nAzSk It doesn't really show up that well, but just imagine that it looks worse in real.
How has your M.F. changed since then? I was tempted to make another thread because it's not that well documented of a thing where mewing is concerned but stopped myself.
I guess I can continue open mouth chewing. Invest in some hard gum, etc. There is a slight chance that my face really does contract involuntarily and this also ruins things...I did note yesterday when I was in pain - mainly body aches and really terrible chest pain, fatigue/malaise, and asthma - my face stiffened up a ton and the fold/mouth area got mysteriously worse. Moreover, that it was very hard to move my face away from the frown. There was a lot of pain in the upper lip and folds. I'm not quite sure what was causing it other than I recall that another time I felt this way, someone I knew said I looked like I was dying. I just have no idea why it shows up on my face so much.
In this event, the monkey-face appearance I developed seemed to be related to upswing of the maxilla and turned out to be a temporary condition. I can't say with 100% certainty, but Mew said in one of his videos that he's gotten good at being able to tell when an upswing occurs, and then he pointed to the area of the face where the nasal labial folds are and said he sees a change there. What change he sees exactly, he didn't say. Then by my measurement, my mew indicator line decreased, along with seeing a visual cue for this. I recently got my husband to do this measurement for me as I didn't think I took accurate measurement both before and after, and he measured it at 41mm which is a decrease from my initial measurement of 45mm (give or take a few mm, since I question the accuracy of my initial measurements). So for these reasons I believe this monkey face I experienced was related to the upswing.
Now I believe I see what you mean in your case though, about monkey face, and if I had to take a guess it's a reference to how the nasal labial lines are both visible and curved at the bottom. They aren't very pronounced from what I can tell from your picture, though, and I'm not sure why they develop. For what it's worth I don't think they look bad or something generally noticed unless pointed out. Try an experiment and jutt your lower jaw forward, you should see your folds disappear at the bottom. Mew's theory is that mewing will eventually prompt the maxilla to upswing, or move up and forward, with the mandible following. The theory remains to be proven and I haven't encountered any evidence of mewing alone being able to accomplish this as of yet.
In a bid to lessen my folds, I used to try massage but it wasn't super effective. I've heard strengthening the malaris muscle can help, and I believe open mouth chewing helped for me as well. To help with function and perceived esthetic issues there are dental procedures like rme which ought to be explored before extremes like surgery.
Your pain symptoms are concerning and your report reminds me of write-ups I regularly read from people with dystonia. The mouth being pulled in to a frown is a commonly reported symptom and dystonia can be comorbid with autism and/or bipolar disorder which can make mood regulation difficult and with a propensity toward negativism which in turn may then worsen/contribute to developing dystonia. My username comes from a time when I was so orally dysfunctional after a car accident my main dietary staple was a green smoothie drank from a straw. Mew's work has helped me a lot, and Dr. Farias. If you do end up getting braces, I strongly caution against letting them close extraction spaces for a "better smile" or whatever other reason, this can be a contributor of worsening dystonia (in case you have this). I hope you investigate this as a possible clue for your pain, ideally with a specialist. I would caution again about exposure to incels or other types who are only going to unnecessarily stress you somehow (a dystonia trigger). Hope this helps.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
Well done. I would say your progress is encouraging. I hope you are encouraged, most of the time. Thank you for your comments on lip pursing. I will refocus on counteracting my own tendency to do that. This stuff is difficult enough without having my lips working against me. The principle of the Frankel Regulator is that removing the lips from the teeth is enough to move them. It is very important.
You should not be disheartened that the positive changes to your face are not stable. You are just beginning to retrain the soft tissue to do the right thing after years of it all pulling tightly in various wrong directions. I do not expect achieve stability until some time after I have moved the underlying teeth and bone into a good position. In the meantime I just try to correct what I can in my facial posture when I catch myself doing it wrong. Yes, it goes wrong in times of stress.
As with all things between the body and the mind, it is a two way street. Bad emotions create bad posture and vice versa. Long before I discovered Mewing I associated my tipped in lower molars (especially on the left side) with rage. Now I may have tipped those teeth in by enraged clenching of my jaw, but I don’t think trying not to feel rage is going to tip them back. I have however been very pleased by the emotional archaeology that Mewing has effected. Unlike a psychological approach this has not involved digging the stored emotion up and having to deal with it by some intellectual process that was not properly performed when it was first felt. I have found that emotions dug up by Mewing have just dissolved. My daughter said to me today that I am a much lighter person than I was a few years back. It is of course possible to proceed on both the physical and emotional issues at the same time, but I am proceeding only the physical and pleased by the emotional results.
This is a long haul, but you have already shown the persistence to carry on even against worries that things were getting worse, something I think most us who have started from a bad position have felt. Just keep going and always smile. Even generally smiley people don’t smile when looking at a computer screen. I try to.
I can't believe nobody's done the honest thing here and pointed out that you're basically a very good looking woman with absolutely no serious or even semi-serious skeletal/bone structure issues! You should thank your lucky stars that you have a good foundation to work from. To me you look like your typical good looking Slavic woman (I don't know if you're Slavic, it's just a guess from the looks). There will be countless girls out there who would give an arm and a leg to look like you.
I honestly don't see anything seriously wrong with your looks in any of the photos, except maybe the eye area looking a bit tired in a couple of them - to me it looks more like a dietary issue than a skeletal one, do you think you could be iron deficient for example? Might be worth looking into. Also have you tried any cosmetic solutions, like for example a glycolic acid serum? Can do wonders for the eye area.
I would totally focus on nothing more than the airway and jaw problems you describe. Purely for the bite and airway issues. I really don't see it as the cause of any major aesthetic issues, because truly you have no major aesthetic issues.
I see a lot of people on forums like this step up to the plate and announce that they have all sorts of major problems with their looks and then I see the photos and think wow, not even close. I suspect there's some degree of BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) among many of us.
I think you can probably ascend way more than 10% through simple things like dietary and habit changes, for example the eating and sleeping on one side. These are things that I've tackled recently and it definitely makes a difference. My left masseter muscle was way bigger than my right because of one-sided chewing and it was the cause of much facial asymmetry, to the point where I even started ignoring my right side in the mirror because I didn't like it as much. Now that I'm chewing more evenly, my face is evening out.
I look slavic? Ah, I sometimes hear men hating on slavic features for being uglier and manlier than usual...not sure what they are but if I do look like that, I guess that explains why strangers, particularly men, have said that I am ugly irl. I really wish I could look more neotenous. And trust me, it isn't BDD. No one in real has ever said I was cute, pretty, good looking, or beautiful--men have said I'm too ugly to date, or that my jaw was too severe...and that's almost impossible for women unless they're truly ugly. At least I've been complimented on everything else. 🤠 Oh lemme clarify...a girl I knew in real said I'm waaaay uglier than how I appear in pictures. It kinda is what it is, y'know?
Anyway--working on the other stuff.
I have dry skin (and eyes; I dunno why they're red often) all year that's shiny and thin with an orange peel texture...I can't really use any acids so I'm basically just stuck with it and derm-approved moisturizing skincare that does nothing (already thoroughly researched it, I'm using the best stuff including occlusives and oils). I'm hoping health improvements will do something about it. I have some fairly severe asymmetry but side sleeping is something I'm going to struggle with giving up--it'll be a long battle. I'd also suspect that side sleeping and the chronic dry skin probably is horrible for my monkey face too.
Well done. I would say your progress is encouraging. I hope you are encouraged, most of the time. Thank you for your comments on lip pursing. I will refocus on counteracting my own tendency to do that. This stuff is difficult enough without having my lips working against me. The principle of the Frankel Regulator is that removing the lips from the teeth is enough to move them. It is very important.
You should not be disheartened that the positive changes to your face are not stable. You are just beginning to retrain the soft tissue to do the right thing after years of it all pulling tightly in various wrong directions. I do not expect achieve stability until some time after I have moved the underlying teeth and bone into a good position. In the meantime I just try to correct what I can in my facial posture when I catch myself doing it wrong. Yes, it goes wrong in times of stress.
As with all things between the body and the mind, it is a two way street. Bad emotions create bad posture and vice versa. Long before I discovered Mewing I associated my tipped in lower molars (especially on the left side) with rage. Now I may have tipped those teeth in by enraged clenching of my jaw, but I don’t think trying not to feel rage is going to tip them back. I have however been very pleased by the emotional archaeology that Mewing has effected. Unlike a psychological approach this has not involved digging the stored emotion up and having to deal with it by some intellectual process that was not properly performed when it was first felt. I have found that emotions dug up by Mewing have just dissolved. My daughter said to me today that I am a much lighter person than I was a few years back. It is of course possible to proceed on both the physical and emotional issues at the same time, but I am proceeding only the physical and pleased by the emotional results.
This is a long haul, but you have already shown the persistence to carry on even against worries that things were getting worse, something I think most us who have started from a bad position have felt. Just keep going and always smile. Even generally smiley people don’t smile when looking at a computer screen. I try to.
Personally I, uh...I think I subconsciously tilted my whole head, and even held my jaw to the left a little. Not even sure the emotional wires that lead to this; I've definitely always been a very awkward, terrified person, very hypersensitive, so that could play into it. Ended up growing into my sedentary childhood lifestyle and my various health problems.
Definitely when I grow lethargic and in pain it gets hard to control my face at all and it definitely starts looking pug-like and...well, even scary because it looks like I'm so on edge.
Happy to hear that you've made functional progress; I personally have at least gotten better nose breathing even with my questionable posture. Used to all the time struggle to breathe through my nose at night...and that was just about half a year ago. Mewing has been really quite helpful there!
Wait--I happened upon your posts on a pulling thread. Something about getting a monkey face..
...and then it hit me, what I have is literally that and that's what that one guy that said I was a 3/10 pointed out as well. You said something about it making you seem aged so...me at 24? That probably explains why people irl said I looked old/middle-aged/haggard, or at least a part of it.
Of course this face gets worse when I feel bad, but generally for virtue of my facial structure, it was always there--it just seems to have worsened. I.e., there's actually fine lines that run down from the folds and down my lips. Here's a picture: https://imgur.com/a/f4nAzSk It doesn't really show up that well, but just imagine that it looks worse in real.
How has your M.F. changed since then? I was tempted to make another thread because it's not that well documented of a thing where mewing is concerned but stopped myself.
I guess I can continue open mouth chewing. Invest in some hard gum, etc. There is a slight chance that my face really does contract involuntarily and this also ruins things...I did note yesterday when I was in pain - mainly body aches and really terrible chest pain, fatigue/malaise, and asthma - my face stiffened up a ton and the fold/mouth area got mysteriously worse. Moreover, that it was very hard to move my face away from the frown. There was a lot of pain in the upper lip and folds. I'm not quite sure what was causing it other than I recall that another time I felt this way, someone I knew said I looked like I was dying. I just have no idea why it shows up on my face so much.
In this event, the monkey-face appearance I developed seemed to be related to upswing of the maxilla and turned out to be a temporary condition. I can't say with 100% certainty, but Mew said in one of his videos that he's gotten good at being able to tell when an upswing occurs, and then he pointed to the area of the face where the nasal labial folds are and said he sees a change there. What change he sees exactly, he didn't say. Then by my measurement, my mew indicator line decreased, along with seeing a visual cue for this. I recently got my husband to do this measurement for me as I didn't think I took accurate measurement both before and after, and he measured it at 41mm which is a decrease from my initial measurement of 45mm (give or take a few mm, since I question the accuracy of my initial measurements). So for these reasons I believe this monkey face I experienced was related to the upswing.
Now I believe I see what you mean in your case though, about monkey face, and if I had to take a guess it's a reference to how the nasal labial lines are both visible and curved at the bottom. They aren't very pronounced from what I can tell from your picture, though, and I'm not sure why they develop. For what it's worth I don't think they look bad or something generally noticed unless pointed out. Try an experiment and jutt your lower jaw forward, you should see your folds disappear at the bottom. Mew's theory is that mewing will eventually prompt the maxilla to upswing, or move up and forward, with the mandible following. The theory remains to be proven and I haven't encountered any evidence of mewing alone being able to accomplish this as of yet.
In a bid to lessen my folds, I used to try massage but it wasn't super effective. I've heard strengthening the malaris muscle can help, and I believe open mouth chewing helped for me as well. To help with function and perceived esthetic issues there are dental procedures like rme which ought to be explored before extremes like surgery.
Your pain symptoms are concerning and your report reminds me of write-ups I regularly read from people with dystonia. The mouth being pulled in to a frown is a commonly reported symptom and dystonia can be comorbid with autism and/or bipolar disorder which can make mood regulation difficult and with a propensity toward negativism which in turn may then worsen/contribute to developing dystonia. My username comes from a time when I was so orally dysfunctional after a car accident my main dietary staple was a green smoothie drank from a straw. Mew's work has helped me a lot, and Dr. Farias. If you do end up getting braces, I strongly caution against letting them close extraction spaces for a "better smile" or whatever other reason, this can be a contributor of worsening dystonia (in case you have this). I hope you investigate this as a possible clue for your pain, ideally with a specialist. I would caution again about exposure to incels or other types who are only going to unnecessarily stress you somehow (a dystonia trigger). Hope this helps.
Hmm...I don't know, I think it's the structure of my face, downswung maxilla, and my somewhat receded zygos that might cause the issue; the cheekbone projection seems to be very poor so maybe it's kinda like my cheek fat doesn't know what to do. 😲
I found out that my foundation, however, was actually aggravating my condition like mad. Yup, of all things. I doubt it's the only cause of my facial tension, but for whatever reason I've tracked it and I start feeling sick/ill and asthmatic after applying my foundation--with eye pain/pressure, sinus congestion, chest pain, and bodily lethargy. It was happening for a while - I thought just going outside on an errand was the exhausting part - and I wrote it off because I thought it was too silly to be true. Looked it up and it, along with most other products, contained an ingredient that some people have anaphylaxic reactions to, the same ones I do. Not sure if I'm imagining things but probably going to try going make-up free on an outing and see if my condition worsens. Oh and I've of course been looking into the mechanisms in which might be causing my physical condition to waver and I've made progress there; seems like it was a mixture of things starting with my gut being problematic as heck.
I'd like to avoid getting braces...too many horror stories. Unfortunately though I realize that properly pursuing the optimal avenues of function and aesthetics for my face will probably cost a lot of money in the long-run. Green smoothies taste awesome at least...I probably should have some more.
Right now my face relaxed a lot, https://imgur.com/a/3okqUPC and my emotions feel just bout the same but I'm not letting them get to me per se.
Thanks for the feedback btw! You always make me wanna go have a green smoothie. <.<
You know... you look gorgeous... but that doesn't always tell you what's going on underneath.
Whereabout are you at?
The thing is... your phone will show your face wrong. It's not you - it's the camera. Cameras distort. You need a good camera or to take from a distance. Cameras notoriously screw with facial affects and it is not you. Also, sometimes you may inadvertently have a phone setting on that embellishes certain facial features. But legit... taking photos up that close can distort any face.
So, as I like to say... chillax.
I think with persistence you can hope for more than 10%. A number of people who have expanded their upper palate through Mewing have achieved improvements in the nasal airway. I have. I note Mike Mew has a video diary with a young man where he is trying to achieve this with appliances. So far no luck.
Your cross bite demands attention. Two things I do that make mine worse: chewing on one side and sleeping on one side. I have not found belt or towel pulling to be effective on my cross bite. It has little effect on my mandible. I proceed by trying to relax the mandible. The Falooda method of letting your mandible drop/ relax at the top of an inhalation and chewing with the incisors (or on a Jawzrcise) seem to relax the lower jaw. But ultimately I claim the space and balance that I want in my lower jaw with my tongue occupying it at about the level where the gums meet the teeth.
Actually, sleeping on your side does not cause a cross bite. LOL Sleeping on side is better for airway typically.
By the way, @greensmoothies This video from Dr. Mahony shows how to properly meausure the Mew indicator line. This has a +/- range. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAsBdrZmFmk I've compared your photo with @wildernessy and do see a slight difference in the lines below the nose. Thing is.. pretty much everyone has these. Check covers of beauty magazines... look at Mrs. Universe finalists. That is beautiful. I guess the issue is whether it can be too deep. I cannot look at this person (who very well may have body dismorphic disorder) and say that she needs to do x, y, z because I'm not qualified. I'm not a doctor. I would encourage her to get multiple opinions as costs vary per provider.
I came to realise that I had little idea of what my face looked like because I had only seen it in the mirror and in photos (and I never permitted many of them). The problem was not distortions but that my face was static and that I would adopt a standard relaxed posture when assessing my face in the mirror, typically after shaving. People around us see our faces in action and the negative emotions, pain, underlying imbalances and functional problems that manifest then. To me this would explain why people here seem to agree you have a pleasing face and your neighbours take the opposite (and tell you! As an Englishman I think that very odd indeed but however unpleasant they have done you a service in getting you to fix things, I suppose.) The good news in this would be that when you have fixed things a bit your face will look as good dynamically as it does static.
I think it is difficult to appreciate progress when some things are still wrong, particularly if you are still in pain, but you have made improvements in your posture, the appearance of the soft tissue of the face and improved your nasal breathing. This is good for the time you have been doing this.
I think of nasal breathers as people who look consistently good and mouth breathers as those that have good days and rough days. This is just my own vast oversimplification of things, but I think there is some truth in it. My own experience has been that my face has much more consistently looked like me since I breathe all the time through my nose. Beyond that as I make progress towards reestablishing symmetry my face looks gradually healthier. All sorts of subtle things that I have no way of identifying seem to work better as I get closer to symmetry. While you wait for progress in symmetry the lymph stimulation of the castor oil pack will produce a tighter, healthier and more youthful looking face.
Feeling awkward and fearful, and things getting worse when you’re tired, may be to do with your thinking and well meaning people with healthy symmetrical bodies will suggest this to you. Understandably they struggle to conceive of another cause. My experience has been that with progress in alignment in my body these feelings have subsided. I hope you experience the same. I see this as a reduction in large amount noise of dogwhistle pain (“What’s the use of pain that won’t identify itself?” I ask my body.) My idea being that my body was constantly sending out threat messages but failing tell me that the threat was the collapse of my structure rather than the world outside me. The other thing that has improved with this reduction in noise is clarity of mind. Trying to keep a wonky body in balance is hard work for the brain and it gets more difficult as you tire. In balance you should tire less easily and being tired should present less of a threat. I can faintly remember that in childhood being tired was a pleasurable feeling in some degree, rather than when I became cranky and stressed.
You know... you look gorgeous... but that doesn't always tell you what's going on underneath.
Whereabout are you at?
The thing is... your phone will show your face wrong. It's not you - it's the camera. Cameras distort. You need a good camera or to take from a distance. Cameras notoriously screw with facial affects and it is not you. Also, sometimes you may inadvertently have a phone setting on that embellishes certain facial features. But legit... taking photos up that close can distort any face.
So, as I like to say... chillax.
Yeah and I look like a literal swamp troll in "distance" pictures. And I told you, I basically look faaaar better in pictures.
It's not complicated tbh...things don't happen senselessly. My mom begun apologizing for how I looked when I was 8, pointing out my flaws and how they made me ugly. My peers bullied me and called me an ugly pig...teenage years, same. College years, my dormmates kept on making sly comments about how bad and weird my face looked--along with guys elsewhere that were giving me looks of disgust or even slowing down in their cars to shout that I was ugly. Heard behind my back that "____ is so smart and sweet and cool, I really like her but I feel bad for her...guys will never see it, her face is too ugly." And everyone mournfully agreed. I mean sure, I get it, people tag people with BDD so they can be treated and normalized, but basically if you're a 24 year old girl and have been nonstop put down for how you looked without anyone ever hitting on you or complimenting you, it just means you're 100% unappealing on every level. Anyway I ended up dropping out of school last year early on...I started off actually at decent self-esteem, but when people just can't seem to stop putting you down for how you looked (and also acting as if it was tragic that I look this way) and you're fragile, it just wears down at you. Used to never care about my looks, as a friend said I care about much deeper intricacies, but I'm not that person anymore..I will have to save up a ton of money to see the proper specialists.
And I gotta be honest. If someone said to my face that I had BDD I'd probably believe them, but no one ever did--not even my therapists.
I came to realise that I had little idea of what my face looked like because I had only seen it in the mirror and in photos (and I never permitted many of them). The problem was not distortions but that my face was static and that I would adopt a standard relaxed posture when assessing my face in the mirror, typically after shaving. People around us see our faces in action and the negative emotions, pain, underlying imbalances and functional problems that manifest then. To me this would explain why people here seem to agree you have a pleasing face and your neighbours take the opposite (and tell you! As an Englishman I think that very odd indeed but however unpleasant they have done you a service in getting you to fix things, I suppose.) The good news in this would be that when you have fixed things a bit your face will look as good dynamically as it does static.
I think it is difficult to appreciate progress when some things are still wrong, particularly if you are still in pain, but you have made improvements in your posture, the appearance of the soft tissue of the face and improved your nasal breathing. This is good for the time you have been doing this.
I think of nasal breathers as people who look consistently good and mouth breathers as those that have good days and rough days. This is just my own vast oversimplification of things, but I think there is some truth in it. My own experience has been that my face has much more consistently looked like me since I breathe all the time through my nose. Beyond that as I make progress towards reestablishing symmetry my face looks gradually healthier. All sorts of subtle things that I have no way of identifying seem to work better as I get closer to symmetry. While you wait for progress in symmetry the lymph stimulation of the castor oil pack will produce a tighter, healthier and more youthful looking face.
Feeling awkward and fearful, and things getting worse when you’re tired, may be to do with your thinking and well meaning people with healthy symmetrical bodies will suggest this to you. Understandably they struggle to conceive of another cause. My experience has been that with progress in alignment in my body these feelings have subsided. I hope you experience the same. I see this as a reduction in large amount noise of dogwhistle pain (“What’s the use of pain that won’t identify itself?” I ask my body.) My idea being that my body was constantly sending out threat messages but failing tell me that the threat was the collapse of my structure rather than the world outside me. The other thing that has improved with this reduction in noise is clarity of mind. Trying to keep a wonky body in balance is hard work for the brain and it gets more difficult as you tire. In balance you should tire less easily and being tired should present less of a threat. I can faintly remember that in childhood being tired was a pleasurable feeling in some degree, rather than when I became cranky and stressed.
How do castor oil packs even physiologically work? 🤔 I apply them regardless. Oh, and the oil on my eyelashes for growth reasons.
Thanks for the feedback on the wired and tired feelings...makes me really wonder. There were a couple of studies done on this btw; the faces belonging to non-stressed women were perceived, almost without fail, as being more attractive...and lemme emphasize, these faces were in neutral expressions too. Consistently I lack features in studies that indicate attractiveness and femininity, no surprise there, but the stress one was particularly interesting though. Statically? That makes me remember, even models can look questionable. I know a published writer, brutally honest, says that he's seen models; some are knockouts, others, just a bit...odd looking to him. And they do in theory have optimal facial development. Guess the uncanny valley can affect us all. Oh, also, one of my legs is longer than the other. I think it's like half an inch or more or something--got it measured by the doctor. This probably isn't a good sign; how do you even re-establish symmetry when your body has just grown badly?.
Do hope I can shake the stressed and wired and tired feeling. Woke up with horrible stress and pain in my chest an hour ago and a painful, tense face. If I can feel half of what I did on the one good day this year I could probably be happy at least.
I have not read a suggestion as to how it causes the lymph to flow. It is pretty odd that it does when another way to do it is trampolining. It seems to act to cause contractions in the body, like when prompting peristalsis when used to treat constipation.
The shorter leg thing. Was yours measured by by Xray or scan or by measuring your body? I ask because I too had a shorter leg. Before I realised what a mess my face and jaw were I thought I just had a lower back problem. I put heel lifts in my right shoe. Just under half an inch if I remember correctly. It was suggested to me that very few people actually had one set of leg bones shorter than the other and that it is normally a twist in the pelvis that gave this impression. I rejected this on the basis my pelvis was not that twisted and I had done a lot of yoga and would have sorted this out if it had not been a real shorter leg. What self delusion! When I discovered Mike Mew’s videos, I found I had to face not only the truth about my canted jaw (and banana bent head), but also my uneven shoulders and hips. Jaw, shoulders and hips should be level. They are very much connected. My jaw went uneven in my early twenties after cretinous orthodontic treatment in my early twenties and the shoulders and hips followed within a couple of years. I noticed the hips and the shoulders but not the jaw. My cowardly tongue just retreated from horrible truth of what was going on. When I started Mewing I stopped any nomal practice of yoga, but Mewing fairly soon for me came to look like a yoga practice in my body from the shoulders up. My thinking was that the distortions of my head, neck and shoulders were accommodations of my wonky jaw, but accommodations that now demanded my jaw stay wonky. Now why I am on this tack is because this work on my jaw and shoulders has levelled my hips (no more back trouble) and shoes feel better without the heel lift, so I am guessing my “shorter leg” is resolved. It looks that way too. I hope you have a similar journey. Do you remember when you first noticed it?
I do not think I am recommending heel lifts. You may already use one, There is a suggestion that they cement a “shorter leg” situation. They are cheap so if you have not you might try to see if they give you any relief from tightness and pain. When the jaw is the source of problems they may not because as you have just written (and Progress did recently) our bodies can tighten up and adopt or readopt misalignment in our sleep. I think yoga is a good idea both for relieving the tension that builds up in your body and for balancing and aligning the body which I think is helpful in removing obstacles to your jaw moving back to rights.
You seem quite attached to the idea that you are unattractive, which is more sensible than my attachment to the idea that I was physically attractive despite the clear evidence that women did not seem to find me so. Looking back I can see that I was in pain, it showed and quite reasonably this was massively unattractive. I guess that your pain and physical discomfort are the largest part of your unattractiveness. If this is so, it’s quite good news because you’re on the road to fixing that.
The pain that you feel may become easier if you believe that you are on the right track to fixing it. I did quite early in this process. You may not, particularly if the jaw and related body problems do not account for much of the pain. I would bet they do. For me it has been gradual but three years into Mewing I feel ease, comfort and life in my body. Before I was very much as you describe yourself and in the feeling good one day a year brigade.
You know... you look gorgeous... but that doesn't always tell you what's going on underneath.
Whereabout are you at?
The thing is... your phone will show your face wrong. It's not you - it's the camera. Cameras distort. You need a good camera or to take from a distance. Cameras notoriously screw with facial affects and it is not you. Also, sometimes you may inadvertently have a phone setting on that embellishes certain facial features. But legit... taking photos up that close can distort any face.
So, as I like to say... chillax.
Yeah and I look like a literal swamp troll in "distance" pictures. And I told you, I basically look faaaar better in pictures.
It's not complicated tbh...things don't happen senselessly. My mom begun apologizing for how I looked when I was 8, pointing out my flaws and how they made me ugly. My peers bullied me and called me an ugly pig...teenage years, same. College years, my dormmates kept on making sly comments about how bad and weird my face looked--along with guys elsewhere that were giving me looks of disgust or even slowing down in their cars to shout that I was ugly. Heard behind my back that "____ is so smart and sweet and cool, I really like her but I feel bad for her...guys will never see it, her face is too ugly." And everyone mournfully agreed. I mean sure, I get it, people tag people with BDD so they can be treated and normalized, but basically if you're a 24 year old girl and have been nonstop put down for how you looked without anyone ever hitting on you or complimenting you, it just means you're 100% unappealing on every level. Anyway I ended up dropping out of school last year early on...I started off actually at decent self-esteem, but when people just can't seem to stop putting you down for how you looked (and also acting as if it was tragic that I look this way) and you're fragile, it just wears down at you. Used to never care about my looks, as a friend said I care about much deeper intricacies, but I'm not that person anymore..I will have to save up a ton of money to see the proper specialists.
And I gotta be honest. If someone said to my face that I had BDD I'd probably believe them, but no one ever did--not even my therapists.
It's definitely unfair the people coming in here with their internet BDD diagnosis. It's making me angry for you and reminding me of the hell I've gone through working on my structural problems (from which emerged appearance and functional issues to work through: the two go hand-in-hand). I had to figure it all out on my own, being dismissed and disbelieved the whole way. In a bid to help improve my health over the years, I visited many health professionals who were either quick to offer psyche meds, dismiss my issues completely or tell me nothing could be done. A lot of kids and adults today are being targeted for psyche med use when it's more a fault of their structure and/or gut health. Someone needs to put a stop to this and it's exceedingly disappointing to see people come in here with the standard BDD dismissal "it's all in your head" when even psychiatry itself is moving away from such beliefs and now beginning to examine the role of gut health in relation to various mental health issues.
I think the other issues are cultural and educational. My impression of Americans is they can be more gregarious than in my country where people are more reserved and polite much like Odys described. So there is less of the bullying culture more common in America. Then the standard of education isn't good in America, so insensitivity, ignorance and other traits more generally associated with a lower IQ could be more commonly encountered than in countries with higher standards of education and better education outcomes. You are smart like those people said, and you come across to me as highly intelligent and capable too.
This all reminds me. I was watching Dragon Ball Z last night with my husband, and couldn't help but notice that the process of becoming a Super Saiyan is really much like what hypersensitive people are tasked with should we rise to the challenge. To transform into a Super Saiyan, one must experience an extreme emotional state. Great despair and/or rage are typical triggers. In the episode I watched, Gohan achieved Super Saiyan form by imagining his friends dying. Then while Vegeta was fighting Cell, Krillin noted that Vegeta's pride was his greatest downfall. His son Trunks disagreed, and added that his father's pride was rather his greatest strength and precisely what gave him motivation to fight. Trunks took great care to be sensitive toward his father's feelings, even with the fate of the planet at stake, and acted in a way that wouldn't injure his father's pride. So feelings and perceived faults are not dismissed or ignored in Dragon Ball Z, but are instead to be embraced, nurtured and used as motivation to fight and powerful vehicles for the transformation of the self.
Dr. Farias graciously posted one of my favourite exerpts from his book "Limitless" on his blog which you may appreciate in your quest to connect dots. https://www.fariastechnique.com/blog/2017/6/5/Holistic-treatment-for-dystonia
tl;dr Let's become Super Saiyans.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
I am sure you would guess as much, but I will say it anyhow. I fully support what Greensmoothies wrote. I do not believe for one moment that your difficulties are all in your head.
Ok I'm back! Had a rough week; I don't get why but it's like after any sort of car ride, even a 10 minute one, I'm just destroyed for the rest of the day--I feel sick, fatigued, and weak. Have no idea whether it's just the stress or what, but...honestly it's crippling. I don't think I've ever felt this way just being at home solely.
I came across the "have you seen results" thread and saw some really interesting stuff about soft tissue development. That also reminded me of something a hacker that sometimes shadows me on an anonymous forum said in this huge magnum opus to "inspire" me to cheer up and fight.
I have not read a suggestion as to how it causes the lymph to flow. It is pretty odd that it does when another way to do it is trampolining. It seems to act to cause contractions in the body, like when prompting peristalsis when used to treat constipation.
The shorter leg thing. Was yours measured by by Xray or scan or by measuring your body? I ask because I too had a shorter leg. Before I realised what a mess my face and jaw were I thought I just had a lower back problem. I put heel lifts in my right shoe. Just under half an inch if I remember correctly. It was suggested to me that very few people actually had one set of leg bones shorter than the other and that it is normally a twist in the pelvis that gave this impression. I rejected this on the basis my pelvis was not that twisted and I had done a lot of yoga and would have sorted this out if it had not been a real shorter leg. What self delusion! When I discovered Mike Mew’s videos, I found I had to face not only the truth about my canted jaw (and banana bent head), but also my uneven shoulders and hips. Jaw, shoulders and hips should be level. They are very much connected. My jaw went uneven in my early twenties after cretinous orthodontic treatment in my early twenties and the shoulders and hips followed within a couple of years. I noticed the hips and the shoulders but not the jaw. My cowardly tongue just retreated from horrible truth of what was going on. When I started Mewing I stopped any nomal practice of yoga, but Mewing fairly soon for me came to look like a yoga practice in my body from the shoulders up. My thinking was that the distortions of my head, neck and shoulders were accommodations of my wonky jaw, but accommodations that now demanded my jaw stay wonky. Now why I am on this tack is because this work on my jaw and shoulders has levelled my hips (no more back trouble) and shoes feel better without the heel lift, so I am guessing my “shorter leg” is resolved. It looks that way too. I hope you have a similar journey. Do you remember when you first noticed it?
I do not think I am recommending heel lifts. You may already use one, There is a suggestion that they cement a “shorter leg” situation. They are cheap so if you have not you might try to see if they give you any relief from tightness and pain. When the jaw is the source of problems they may not because as you have just written (and Progress did recently) our bodies can tighten up and adopt or readopt misalignment in our sleep. I think yoga is a good idea both for relieving the tension that builds up in your body and for balancing and aligning the body which I think is helpful in removing obstacles to your jaw moving back to rights.
You seem quite attached to the idea that you are unattractive, which is more sensible than my attachment to the idea that I was physically attractive despite the clear evidence that women did not seem to find me so. Looking back I can see that I was in pain, it showed and quite reasonably this was massively unattractive. I guess that your pain and physical discomfort are the largest part of your unattractiveness. If this is so, it’s quite good news because you’re on the road to fixing that.
The pain that you feel may become easier if you believe that you are on the right track to fixing it. I did quite early in this process. You may not, particularly if the jaw and related body problems do not account for much of the pain. I would bet they do. For me it has been gradual but three years into Mewing I feel ease, comfort and life in my body. Before I was very much as you describe yourself and in the feeling good one day a year brigade.
Hm...so it has an effect on circulation? Still mysterious.
My posture was definitely messed up and I slouched all the time as a kid/teen and apparently I subconsciously held my head to the right or left at an odd tilt...this was something I just noticed as an adult. I was so out of touch with my body as a kid. Felt odd and awkward to just live but back then the tension was mild other than the horrible left-sided jaw pain. I noted that I also seem to favor my left side when sleeping...hmm.
I try yoga but each time it just exhausts the heck out of me and makes me break a sweat...I'm so weak despite consistent exercise. But I will try to push through it in hopes that the induced stress will help re-center and strengthen my body. I finally tried butekyo (breathing technique) with meditation while in dreaded transit. I was in horrible pain and stress, but after an half hour of it, I felt quite a bit better which was interesting. Especially because I wasn't thinking anxious thoughts before or anything...it definitely seems like even my breathing contributes to my bodily disjointedness. I realize that it's normal for me to purposefully...stunt my own breath, for favor of being as quiet and as little as a bother to others as I possibly can--much like how I walk or how softly I talk (or how I don't talk at all).
Tbh a few years back I was under a similar delusion too...sure, had my budding issues but when guys stared, there was a part of me that was excited--"Wow, maybe he thinks I'm cute!" Wow. In retrospect it was embarrassing of me to think so...but I realize that it's actually normal for girls to think these things, and that I was the odd one out because I actually looked freakish.
I agree with @AlphaMinus that the OP is above-average in attractiveness, and the main issues visible in her photos are health, skin, and tiredness.
To the original poster: Despite having some craniofacial issues and asymmetries, you are above average in attractiveness. I do not know why you have been receiving unanimously negative feedback and a lack of positive feedback on your attractiveness in your life. Whatever the problem is, it's not coming across in your photos. Are you living in a small country where all the other girls are supermodels and the men have really high standards? Over here (California), I see girls with craniofacial issues more severe than yours are getting boyfriends all the time. You don't look super abnormal or far-off craniofacially like most of the posters here, and you do not look deformed at all. I also think that craniofacial issues just don't hurt female attractiveness as much as male.
My theory: The main source of your issue is an anxious nervous system, or odd body language, or you are carrying lots of tension in your face. You do look very introverted and standoffish in your photos. I think people are noticing you being uncomfortable or thinking that you are odd, and then treating you as low-status. They are picking on your face to rationalize their treatment of you. But your facial structure alone is not enough to get this reaction. Something else has to be going on.
Don't get me wrong, the crossbite is an issue, and I can see some asymmetry in your jaw position. But these things are not ruining your attractiveness, at least not as far as I can see from your photos. Something else is going on. Yes, you have work to do, but most of the population has work to do.
This is a good site about facial tension developed through social stress that I am currently reading.
I think you might have some underlying health issue going on that bigger than just TMJ. It would also probably be worth you checking Vitamin D, iron, B12, and blood counts with a doctor to see if some deficiency is sapping your energy. Health issues can also make people come across as awkward instead of socially skilled.
For the allergies and stuff, look into Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. There is lots of info on it online. It's probably being triggered by something you are eating. Try an elimination diet, like a low histamine diet. I bet your diet is part of the issue, so look into paleo, keto, or carnivore diets for general health.
I live in California. Ironically my uni had a bunch of guys that past around a meme about the girls there being very ugly...this was mainly because it was a STEM uni, very difficult, etc., and the girls were actually cute just didn't wear any makeup - I was also actually bigger and taller than 95% of them which probably made me much more unappealing and ugly to guys (hence them randomly insulting my looks). But again barely anyone was super models. I just was the least cute one.
Had a vitamin D deficiency and got that treated. Zinc too; I think it's treated as well but need to be tested again. Pretty sure the other stuff was measured.
I am going to cut out antihistamines all together as they seem to be backfiring and preventing me from properly examining what affects me and what helps me--did test for MCAS before but they found nothing. I felt horrible when tested--if MCAS was the issue then it woulda showed up then.
I did see that in the normal allergy test I was allergic to almost everything, especially a severe one to alternaria--a fungi, particularly the alternata one. My take on it tho is that it is literally impossible to avoid tho and that it's prob only a small part of the issue...and a larger one if I'm already immune compromised.
Is programpeace a good site for the rest of you guys? I definitely need to incorporate more exercises.
Looking better at night may not just be the lighting. It may be reality. We all look rougher in the morning. It might just take you longer to get through that. That sometimes you look much worse than others is what made me think of your lymphatic system. It is the internal cleaning system of the body. There is much written elsewhere on the internet about it.
I am glad Buteyko helped. Getting our breathing right is a major part of what we are trying to fix with Mewing.
Otherwise we are fixing the twists in our structure starting with the jaw. The suggestion of yoga is to help in this and may not be pleasant. Breaking into a sweat may not be what happens to others in the class but it may be a good sign for you. If it is too exhausting, make sure you are attending the gentlest form of class you can find. Also note that releasing high grade long held tension is exhausting and may not feel great as it is only going to be a partial release. It is not all going to disappear in a single class.
Antihistamines may relieve symptoms and seem very helpful to the Mewer’s quest to establish good nasal breathing, and they are sold to be taken as required, but I find they have a dreadful effect on my mind. I become an ogre.
It may seem that you are beset with a large number of health problems to fix. In fact it is probably just a handful of things that are causing so many things to be problematic. Do not despair if you succeed in finding and fixing those few the others will likely fall like dominoes.
That being said changing one’s oral and facial posture is only mostly a local issue. The more I do of this the more I find seemingly remote habits that I have acquired that have been having a negative impact on my oral and facial posture.
With diet some years back I got to a point where I decided to stop eating everything I was and gradually add back things one by one to see what it was that had been problematic for me. One can do this generally in life. Change everything, even for a short while. The retreat to a monastery or ashram approach. If you have habitual choices that you are making that are causing problems, spending some time living to the rule of such a place can bring relief.
I guess I just wanted to tell you guys more of what might be going on. It seems like my bone structure IS good, but the contours, skin quality, and soft tissues are faulty--even that hacker-guy seemed to notice. Candid shots I look very ugly, sick, and old--and even some of my own shots. A ghoulish quality. I can tell why my dormmates always said I looked like death or like a zombie. In certain lighting you can see the issue. Others, not so much.The additional information you have provided is consistent with my take. Craniofacial issues aren't your main problem. Your general health is not great, and that is causing you to look ill. Issues with skin, soft tissue, facial muscle tone, hair (does your hair or nails have issues?), in combination with the minor craniofacial issues are causing people to perceive you in weird ways. But it's not just your bone structure, because you get different responses at night (and maybe with makeup vs no makeup?).
My suggestion of generally poor health is corroborated by the fact that you've had both Vitamin D deficiency and zinc deficiency. This tells me that your diet is deficient. I wouldn't be surprised if you have other deficiencies or anemia (see if the doctors ran iron and Completely Blood Count on you).
The other important piece of data is that you have trouble tolerating exercise. This is a metabolic problem and another sign of potential malnutrition.
Are/were you vegetarian or vegan? Or did you ever do dieting with caloric restriction to lose weight? Because the wide range of symptoms you are having is similar to vegan malnourishment. Check out this video compilation of vegan YouTube celebrities as their health declines, and they start looked ghoulish and aged. (Your case is nowhere near as bad as those people. I'm just using this as an example to should how nutritional deficiencies and advanced glycation end products from high carb diets can destroy facial soft tissue and make people look ill even if the bone structure stays the same.)
Don't beat yourself up, lots of people end up in situations of being malnourished, and then fix themselves. Georgia Ede says that it's very common for female college students especially, in this excellent nutrition presentation. Also, don't go and take a boatload of supplements, try to figure out how to use whole foods for nutrition.
I remember there was a blog and YouTube channel of a girl who suffered childhood neglect, causing her to lose teeth and develop craniofacial dystrophy. She didn't know how to brush her teeth, and she didn't know how to groom herself or dress. People treated her like a homeless person. As an adult, she started Mewing, she learned grooming, cooking, and clothing, and recovered to have a normal life, boyfriends, etc., though she still has some facial asymmetry. Anyone remember her site? I can't find it.
As for MCAS, which tests did they run? I did both urine and blood tests. The urine test came back negative, but the blood tests for histamine and prostaglandins were positive. Doctors really like to shirk and cut corners on testing.
Histamine issues can be related to motion sickness. Maybe that is why you have trouble in car rides.
My recommendations:
- Continue Mewing
- Continue Buteyko (Frolov device makes it easy)
- Improve your diet. Try paleo, keto, or carnivore. You can start by eating meat with each meal (fatty cuts like ribeye steak, burgers, bacon, and salmon), and reduce any carby food. Favor animal fats (tallow, lard, ghee) over plant fats, because animal fats are less inflammatory and contain fat-soluble vitamins important for bone development. Also consider eating liver or other organ meats for minerals, and fatty fish for vitamin D. Lots of people find they feel like a different person from eating more meat and less carbs.
- Make sure you eat enough. If you are worried about gaining fat, then cut carbs, and replace them with meat. Meat is very satiating and it will stop you from overeating carbs.
- Try bone broth or pork rinds. Might help with connective tissue in the face.
- Consider tracking everything you are eating in MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, or Nutrient Optimiser. At least, tracking when you change things to make sure you are getting what you think you are getting.
- Reduce histamines in diet and see if it helps your allergies. Here is a list of high histamine foods. Avoid cured meats or processed meats because they can be high in histamine.
- Getting off antihistamines is a good idea, especially Benadryl, because it is an anticholinergic which is bad for brain health.
- Try to exercise, when you are ready, and start small. You can start with yoga, but ideally you would be able to do both cardio and resistance training. You don't have to become an athlete, the goal would be to correct the deconditioning.
Damn that video was scary. I mean, I've seen decent looking older vegans but this...damn.
Not sure whether or not it's a good thing that I look quite haggard but never was vegan and...I honestly do look like those people in candid shots or even worse. Bums me out but there's a reason why I don't keep photographs like those. I probably have meat every day, I just love it tbh. If I had any more I think I'd be much higher than the "healthy" amount of protein I should be taking in. Apparently an excess is more harm than good.
And I know of AGEs; I try to avoid overcooking stuff and have gotten into the occasional habit of soaking my meats or other veggies in an acidic base to limit AGE formation--if I cook them. I just didn't know that carbs were more dangerous than meat AGE-wise...? That's a bit of a shocker. I also do take glycine to help the methione/glycine ratio some more in this process but if I had more money I'd probably invest in certain foods like grass fed meat/organs or bones for broth. Glycine seems like a good supplement to me.
At uni I was sometimes calorie restricting myself...this was about a year ago. My daily intake would be "1350" for maintenance bc any higher and I literally gain weight, but on some days back then I cut to 900. I think I lost about 50 pounds 2016-2018, cutting down to...well, now I'm 146, 5'6. 1300 is basically all I can eat.
Calorie restriction isn't supposed to be a bad thing; there's promising studies on it. But I think not getting proper nutrition is the caveat here....that and basically if you eat very little, it's technically metabolically healthier to eat nothing and fast temporarily instead (which I just can't do, lol. My appetite is enormous).
I do have cronometer too; I'll get back into using it, and I'm gonna start exercising a bit harder. I remember going to the gym at uni with my dormmates but...for some reason, despite everyone being very sedentary, after working out they'd all freak out at how haggard and messed up I looked afterwards (and I only worked out half as much as they did)--apparently I looked ill and I felt lethargic and dizzy. I remember being very discouraged after a few weeks and quit. Guess...this is something I just need to work through.
Oh and silly question but where would I find pork rinds? Like...the only time I saw em at a store, they were poppable pork rinds...which was kinda tasty but can't imagine that it was healthy.
Man...I just remembered my dormmate saying "Omg you look like death! Have some more protein!" But ironically I was having stuff like fish, eggs, bacon, beef, and veggies every day. I feel bad just looking back.
Oh, and here's a pretty bad pic that shows some of my issues: https://imgur.com/a/tmpVy8m
Yeah I know. Taken from an high angle with no makeup, of course I look bad. But IDK. Early 20s girls shouldn't look this way imo. I'm not mad at all, I'm actually feeling good but it even looks a bit scary/uncanny.
Looking better at night may not just be the lighting. It may be reality. We all look rougher in the morning. It might just take you longer to get through that. That sometimes you look much worse than others is what made me think of your lymphatic system. It is the internal cleaning system of the body. There is much written elsewhere on the internet about it.
I am glad Buteyko helped. Getting our breathing right is a major part of what we are trying to fix with Mewing.
Otherwise we are fixing the twists in our structure starting with the jaw. The suggestion of yoga is to help in this and may not be pleasant. Breaking into a sweat may not be what happens to others in the class but it may be a good sign for you. If it is too exhausting, make sure you are attending the gentlest form of class you can find. Also note that releasing high grade long held tension is exhausting and may not feel great as it is only going to be a partial release. It is not all going to disappear in a single class.
Antihistamines may relieve symptoms and seem very helpful to the Mewer’s quest to establish good nasal breathing, and they are sold to be taken as required, but I find they have a dreadful effect on my mind. I become an ogre.
It may seem that you are beset with a large number of health problems to fix. In fact it is probably just a handful of things that are causing so many things to be problematic. Do not despair if you succeed in finding and fixing those few the others will likely fall like dominoes.
That being said changing one’s oral and facial posture is only mostly a local issue. The more I do of this the more I find seemingly remote habits that I have acquired that have been having a negative impact on my oral and facial posture.
With diet some years back I got to a point where I decided to stop eating everything I was and gradually add back things one by one to see what it was that had been problematic for me. One can do this generally in life. Change everything, even for a short while. The retreat to a monastery or ashram approach. If you have habitual choices that you are making that are causing problems, spending some time living to the rule of such a place can bring relief.
Hmm, to be fair I tend to deteriorate as the day goes by--but my good childhood friend did say (to clarify she's an absolute angel and has been for the 20 years I've known her but I accidentally worded something wrong and she got mad and said this) that I look demonic in the morning--something about pretty bad eye bags. To be honest I don't fully understand it but a lot of my discomfort lays within my eyes. Last night I woke up and they felt painful and pressured and dry and I didn't understand why. I would hope the issue is fixable enough by...idk, better lymph drainage. Generally my eyes do feel awful and for whatever reason there's sometimes sharp pain in the undereyes even if I got a full night's rest. I just don't fully get why my eyes feel the way they do; nowadays I've noted that they look ok mid-day but look awful by nighttime. And, same as my nasolabial folds tbh, they look ghoulish sometime, but..really not all days. Really quite mysterious as my water intake is high and 100% consistent. Guess it really is nutrition?
I haven't had any jaw pain in a few days again so I'm optimistic enough. I do hope that about by age 28, I manage to have my body in order--
There was a time where I felt half-dead...spring break. Wasn't sure if it was spending too much time indoors or what, but I just was fading out of life. I was taking 3 benadyrls a day...I initially felt awful and asthmatic and normally a ben helps me feel more awake (paradoxically), but I guess my system was destroyed. No wonder why they're trying to faze out this one in particular, it's messed up.
Anyways I figure like nothing inherently is really wrong with me...just, something faulty about how my body deals with stress, energy, and recovery. Maybe something similar to a mitochrondrial dysfunction but definitely not as serious; I just find the sense of malaise, chest pain, and numbness quite odd and especially how it just creeps up on me while I'm out. Could be really how my body adapted to be so if it's exposed to stress it doesn't really adapt properly...idk. Something like that.
Also Greensmoothies, I did type out a very long thoughtful reply to you yesterday but my laptop ended up freezing and I lost everything, rip. But I did wanted to say that what you said was inspiring--especially cuz I used to be a big fan of DB when I was a kid. <3 I'll probably tackle a full reply at another time.
Gonna sleep for now, I'm so tired. I appreciate all the help!
Thank you James for the mention of the Programmepeace site. It looks good. I am increasingly interested in how habits and posture in the rest of my body hinder progress in Mewing.
Wildernessy, as my jaw began to go wrong I did not notice it directly (my tongue just retreated) but I did notice pressure all over the front of my skull and generally in my head. “Oh it’s stress”. Well reducing stress never did anything much for it. Lying down to go to sleep made it worse, which made falling asleep difficult. One of the great benefits I have had from Mewing has been that it has reduced that pressure and with it has come a sense of ease. There is an idea that by moving the sphenoid bone one expands the skull, but I also have a sense that the expansion of my jaws itself is directly releasing bands of constriction that loop over my frontal bone. I do not know anything in anatomy that would account for this but the sense of release is there.
Your skin particularly but your body in general requires sunlight.
Nobody here is qualilfied to tell you anything. Don't know you know?!?! The reason why people are paid lots of money to do things is because what they do is worth something.
I think the other issues are cultural and educational. My impression of Americans is they can be more gregarious than in my country where people are more reserved and polite much like Odys described. So there is less of the bullying culture more common in America. Then the standard of education isn't good in America, so insensitivity, ignorance and other traits more generally associated with a lower IQ could be more commonly encountered than in countries with higher standards of education and better education outcomes. You are smart like those people said, and you come across to me as highly intelligent and capable too.
US literacy scores are highly skewed by the fact that we have a very large population of first generation immigrants who were raised in very poor countries with a widespread lack of good schooling. As for IQ rates, well if you look at a list of countries rated by average IQ, you'll find a ton of European countries with scores significantly lower than the US, that's if you even place any real value on IQ as a test of intelligence (it's not that good).
I think the other issues are cultural and educational. My impression of Americans is they can be more gregarious than in my country where people are more reserved and polite much like Odys described. So there is less of the bullying culture more common in America. Then the standard of education isn't good in America, so insensitivity, ignorance and other traits more generally associated with a lower IQ could be more commonly encountered than in countries with higher standards of education and better education outcomes. You are smart like those people said, and you come across to me as highly intelligent and capable too.With all due respect, just how "reserved and polite" do you feel it is to make sweeping generalizations about the IQ scores and level of education of an entire nation?US literacy scores are highly skewed by the fact that we have a very large population of first generation immigrants who were raised in very poor countries with a widespread lack of good schooling. As for IQ rates, well if you look at a list of countries rated by average IQ, you'll find a ton of European countries with scores significantly lower than the US, that's if you even place any real value on IQ as a test of intelligence (it's not that good).
I haven't seen any ignorance or bullying in this thread. Any reasonable person viewing the photos of the OP would agree that she is an attractive woman who has no major deformities. We're not claiming that her face is perfect, or that she doesn't have asymmetries, or that there aren't things that could be improved. We're just recognizing the fact that when your photos show you to look quite normal in appearance with no major deviations away from the average spectrum of human faces, and you're claiming to be "deformed" and that people treat you as if you were deformed, there's a certain psychological aspect to this, yes.And it's not just that we're "insensitive" or ignorant to what other people are going through. Many of us have experienced negative delusions about our own appearance from time to time, and have gotten frustrated with people who tell us that we look perfectly normal. I've been through similar things, especially when I was younger. Looking back 20 years, I almost can't believe how negative I was about my own appearance and now that I've had time to deal with some of my negativity and insecurity, I can look back at photos of myself and think wow, you really were down on yourself unnecessarily weren't you! I used to think I literally looked like an alien. And I clearly didn't.And I'm aware that photos don't get the whole thing across, as the OP says. However, by now I'm pretty much used to the ways in and degrees by which cameras (especially phone cameras) distort the face. They do distort, but not that much. Not so much that a hideously deformed person in real life would look quite attractive in a photo.I'm not disputing any of the other problems Wildernessy has. Physical discomfort/tiredness is another issue entirely. All I'm saying is that she most certainly is not ugly, not by a long shot.
Beware of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. IQ score provides an estimate of human intelligence, and with debates about heritability aside, can be helpful with determining prenatal and infant nutrition, and in adulthood, helping to predict outcomes in life such as career and education outcomes. As a parent, I've kept a keen eye on physical, emotional and intellectual developmental milestone standards, as well as those practices found to increase IQ, then attempting to avoid those found to decrease it or negatively impact developmental milestones.
Also it's not my intention to insult Americans or get in to a debate re: effects of immigration on education outcomes. Perhaps that throws off the OECD statistics which places the US toward the bottom. My comment was about the bullying she's experienced in her real life and some thoughts re: contributing factors. I too do not personally believe OP is ugly, deformed etc and there are likely reasons beyond OP's physical appearance to explain the negative experiences. But I also didn't want to reach for the low-hanging self-esteem boost fruit because I don't feel like this is especially helpful. Her bad feelings mean something, have some power, and can also be used to improve her lot in life. Your face is your fortune is a saying very near to a woman: self-esteem increase isn't going to change that. Our beauty has far-reaching consequences which impacts the quality of our life in a major way. Certainly there is cause for concern.
Quality of life. Therein lies the battle.
eta: after sleeping on this, I've come to better understand my annoyance with this response to OP. On the surface it seems nice enough, to say she's not ugly and not to be concerned with her social experience, but there's a hidden cruelty I think. It seems to imply she came here fishing for compliments and can't benefit from doing the work she needs to do to obtain less damaging social feedback, or only deserves the most basic things every human should have by default, like a pain free life or breathing well, never mind getting social needs met and the fulfillment from having a good BF. And maybe people don't want to deal with the negative emotions that go along with receiving negative feedback in social settings, loneliness or can't understand the phenomenon because they never dealt with it first hand. Being such a person who's been through this experience of chronic negative social feedback, I can tell you it's a very painful and confusing experience and I'm so grateful to have my husband who refused to pat me on the head and send me away with a "don't worry, you're pretty" dismissal of my life experiences and feelings. So condensending. Why do people do this to women! Instead he informed me that I needed to work on my smile, because turns out I was grimacing and making people cringe at me. Unable to keep up a conversation when people cringe and turn away from you. So I couldn't socialise in my life which was a very isolating experience when I was a new mom. I cried nearly every day. Who can say what went wrong for me, but with the help of my husband I recognized I had an issue with my face, expression etc and soon thereafter came across a guide written by the same person who wrote project peace linked earlier. I followed his guide, and believe it helped me, or at least something I did went right for me since I no longer have the experience of attempting to socialise and people cringing and turning away from me. Isolation and loneliness kill people, it's a serious problem that isn't solved with the hand-waving dismissal disguised as compliments.
Remember this pain... and let it activate you.
