Tuesday 2 March 2021

Yes, I'm About To Complain, Sorry...

So.... masks.

Masks, masks, masks, masks, masks.

Up until quite recently, I've only worn masks for a short period of time (quickly in and out of a store to pick up an order, going in/out of my apartment building), or on a practitioner's table (massage, acupuncture...).  Now that I've worn my mask for a longer period of time (several hours rather than maaaaybe an hour and a half) I'm finding the issues most other folks have probably already dealt with this last year.

Like the first day I went into (workplace) and grabbed my water bottle and went, well crap... now I have to think about drinking water rather than just... you know, drinking it!  (Minor inconvenience, and can be easily worked around.)

There's also the issue of not being able to hear each other very well.  Especially if there's the addition of the plexiglass barrier on top of that.  I'd already encountered this at the few stores I'd gone into and every time I kind of end up wiggling my way to the side of the barrier to hear/be heard and then going back behind it.  (And yes, I feel very much for those with hearing issues, I can't even imagine, honestly how the lack of lip reading affects so many right now.)

So far I'm still figuring out the "mask acne" so I don't want to jinx it by saying so far so good but..... keep your fingers crossed (and thanks for the advice!)  Still figuring that out though for sure.

My biggest "complaint" (which, yes, it is a complaint, I'm not sure why I put it in quotations...) is that the loop/elastic thingies pull on my ear.  JUST THE ONE.  My left ear.  I don't know if my face is crooked and I'm guessing my ears are but just the left ear is pretty darn irritated by the... I'm not even sure, the pressure?  The rubbing?  I don't know!!!  And yes, I have the "ear savers" but I haven't managed to get them to be functional yet but I'll be trying them out this week.  And, no, I'm not complaining about the "dumbo" ears I get... that's something I could totally live with, it's the sore ear that's getting to me.  Sigh.

I feel like maybe the masks I have might not be the best fit but I also don't want to just keep ordering random masks to try, you know?

And there is the whole... because each mask is slightly different (even though from the same company) some of them are a bit short and if I talk they pop off my chin, argh.  Or ride up into my eyes.  And don't even get me started on wearing glasses, I just don't!

And aside from being in (workplace), for whatever reason, when I went to get help for my neck/shoulder/rib thing, somehow the position of the face holder thing was such that I got a dent/scratch? on my nose from lying on it for an hour and now my nose hurts and I did warn you that I'd be complaining!!!  (sorry, I know we all have to deal with it)

I also feel like I'm holding my jaw weird.  Or that my jaw is somehow affected by wearing the mask.  I did ask the practitioners working on my owies to see if they could help my jaw pain and oh man am I ever glad I did that.  I even made an appointment for this week just to get more/ongoing help for the jaw.  Cuz, yeah, I for sure hold my tension there and that's not helped by the oddity of wearing a mask for a longer time.

If I were to pick one of my whiny complaints to be "the worst" right now it would for sure be the sore left ear.  And my hope this week is to try to figure that out.  I wonder if I have it pulled too tight, but it's meant to be tight for protection, right?  Or if it really just is a "slightly crooked face/ear" situation and there's not much to be done about it.  Will I get used to it?  Will my ear build a callus?  I hope one of the ear saver things will work for me or something like that can be figured out.  I know there are masks you can put around the back of your head rather than loop over the ears but this is going to sound vain... then what about your hair???

I wondered about trying disposable masks, if maybe they fit differently or are lighter or something, but I'm reluctant to go disposable, and I've also found that it seems like they really make me smell my breath and, you know, sometimes that's not something I really want to add to my day!

I have been looking at other recommended cloth masks, including so called 3D ones, and I may end up ordering some to try but it's the ear thing I'm most wanting to fix.  Or, more specifically the left ear thing (although let's not curse the right ear!)

Did you ever think we'd be having this conversation.... like, ever?

2 comments:

Jason Langlois said...

I've noticed the same thing with the jaw if I wear the mask for a long time. I wonder if it's subconsciously tensing to try and deal with the pressure on the ears?

Victoria said...

It's got to be something like that...