@anthonymg Anthony, I had a bump on my inner lip that looked very much like the bump in your picture. Mine was from accidentally biting my lip hard a few times (enough to puncture it) and it developed scar tissue and got even bigger and became what they call a fibroma. Of course, since it was in the way, I would catch it and bite it every few months or so. I lived with that probably at least ten years and just tried to avoid biting into it. I was going through some major dental work with an oral surgeon in the last couple years for dental implants and I had him remove it. That likely won't happen again because the new front teeth don't make contact with the lowers which is to prevent putting pressure on the implants.

Honestly my teeth have been a problem most of my life. I was only 9 when I fell on my face and broke them, and for most of my life after that, I had ugly teeth that I couldn't hide from anyone and I had deep fears of dentists and doctors. The trauma from that event caused a cascade of stainless steel caps, braces, bonding, root canals, crowns, bridgework to replace crowns, oral surgery for failed root canals, extractions and dental implants, and now for the first time, I have front teeth that look nice. It took 55 years, and now I am free of those old problems. No one can tell that my teeth were made in a lab. I know, and I actually worked in that same dental lab years ago, and it's OK. They are not exactly the natural teeth I had, and no one can bring them back. The new ones are just different. I spent some time looking at other people's teeth and noticing how very different and imperfect they can be. I had perceived other people as having nice teeth and mine were always ugly, and I had to tell myself it was OK to have different teeth. They do look nice.

Perfection is something that is hard to define. Most people are somewhat asymmetrical and even internally there can be differences in placement of organs and vessels and nerves which is very common. It's when we tell ourselves that we are supposed to be perfect that the stress begins. What if we just told ourselves it is OK to be imperfect? Doctors are looking for the things that are abnormal and could cause disease, but there are a lot of benign things they will ignore because it doesn't cause a problem.

I would ask why you don't think myofascial release could help you? Here is my thinking.. when a person is stressed (myself included) everything tightens up as we clench or brace against something. It becomes a habit. My neck and shoulders get tight. I also had a whiplash injury years ago which caused the bracing behavior, and eventually it caused a spine problem that needed surgery.

Was I scared? You bet! But I got through it and learned from it and learned how to beat my fears. My physical therapist was doing myofascial release because of my tight neck and shoulders at the time the spine problem was becoming evident. It helped make my recovery from spine surgery better because I was in a better condition going into surgery. After surgery, my swallowing was painful and difficult for a few weeks because they had to go behind my throat and windpipe to get to my spine. I just had to be careful swallowing, and when I was recovered enough, myofascial release work helped loosen up my neck again and loosen the scar tissue that formed because of surgery. I still do this because things tend to tighten up if left alone. I have learned from my experience that any slight alignment issues of the spine and skull in combination with neck muscle spasms can generate a lot of pain. I can get pain across the front of my throat, tingling in my face, jaw pain, headaches, neck and shoulder pain, etc if a muscle spasm starts turning a vertebrae in my neck or tightening my jaw. Fascial work can help the tightness and muscle spasms that are causing the problems. Since my spine surgery, these issues have calmed down, and I have a lot of body awareness so when something starts, I can lay down and check my spine alignment with my hands. I have learned that from my physical therapist and also some things to do to get back to realignment which stops the pain. The pain happens when muscles get stretched because they are pulled out of alignment by another opposing muscle. Sometimes I get tightness across the front of my throat from this, and my PT can always fix that. The key to staying pain free for me, is to try to maintain good body and posture alignment and that is very important for my neck to help to prevent future spine issues. (See response continued in the next message.)

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