My Story

Share your ice chewing stories.

My Story

Postby happy » Tue Aug 30, 2005 5:39 pm

I have been eating ice every since I was little kid. It would come and go in waves during my lifetime. Once a former roommate asked why I did it. Not knowing why but also wanting to have an answer I said out of stress. So any time she would hear the crunch crunching from my room she would ask, "Is everything OK? "

At first it was a white lie to get her off my back but over the years I found it to become true. My ice consumption would increase with emotionally stressful times in my life. I feel fortunate that I haven't had any disastrous teeth issues but each time I bite down I worry that this will be the one they will have me wearing false teeth before I am forty.

Writing this feels like I am in some sort of program for ice eaters. I have never done a 12-step program but I imagine if an ICA (Ice Chewers Anonymous) existed this pouring out of my history to people who have gone through the same thing would feel just as cathartic.

Like others on this website, the site of a freezer lined up with snowing whiteness causes my mouth to salivate. All moisture leaves my glands and I want to dip my hand, No, my face in and just chomp on the snowy goodness.

I feel...I feel like this is my little dark secret. Not that everyone who has spent time around me doesn't know I chew ice but not to what extent I go to get my fix! When I moved into my apartment and saw I had an older fridge where the frost collected around the walls of the freezer, did ask my landlord to update to a newer frost free freezer? No way, instead I did the Snoopy dance! My boyfriend would get annoyed when I left my "tools", a soup spoon or melon baller and wooden meat tenderizer, in the freezer. I try and scrape the freezer when no one was around. I purposely leave the refrigerator door open a crack because I know I will get more snow faster that way. Snow, listen to me I sound like a cocaine fiend. But yet it does feel like a monkey on my back. I don't do drugs and I am a light weight when it comes to alcohol. Yet every time I started a new job (I used to freelance), when got the tour of the place I would check what kind ice making facility they had. If it was one of those ice making machines that made little clear square cubes I felt safe. I knew I wouldn't be as addicted to them. But if they had the crescent shaped ice cube makers AND the cubes came out all white. GOD HELP ME. I would already be devising methods of inconspicuous transport from the ice maker to my desk.

I do wonder though how "situational" my craving are. I noticed when I travel to foreign countries where ice is not as accessible as it is in US restaurants and bars I would be fine. Out of sight out of mind. You rarely get ice in your drinks when you sit at café unless you ask for some. When I have asked for ice in my drinks many is the time the waitperson would use a spoon to drop in one or two ice cubes. As long as I had no ice while I was away it was all good. But if I got to crunch just one piece I was having fantasies about the plane ride home where I could ask the flight attendant for as much ice as he could carry.

Side effects. There numerous. The effects I am about mention I have observed in myself over the years. Even tested it by seeing how things changed when I didn't eat ice. First, and I apologize if I gross anyone out (not my intent), Bowel movement. . My ice cravingS are usually strongER after I have eaten a filling meal. If I have a really gorging session of ice chewing, I mean the equivalent to a ice bucket or half of a bag, I go to the bathroom very soon after and am emptied out. I not saying this is any form of weight loss. Not at all but just what happens to me. I figure all that ice is the equivalent, or more, of drinking nearly a gallon of water which would produce the same effect. Second, my nipples. Obviously they get hard but they also begin to hurt. I'm less embarrassed about them showing through my blouse but then I unconsciously start up holding my chest because it becomes really stingingly painful. I notice this usually occurs when I have something hot like tea with my cups of ice. I am not sure what that is about (the combination of extreme cold and extreme heat) but man, they become tearfully sore. Third, respiratory issues. I live in New York City and have a pretty reliable way of gauging my heart and breathe rate. Subway stairs. I walk up and down the same subway steps when I arrive home or go to work. If I have had a regular daily diet of ice the stairs are like Mount Everest. (once some woman stopped to see if I was feeling OK) If I stay away from ice for even a few days the ascent to the street surface is more normal. I am not a star athlete, more of a weekend warrior, and am of average fitness and weight yet even when I bike an d swim I can notice a difference

Though I am mildly anemic I never believed the iron anemia connection. It just didn't make any logical sense. One day I read a abstract from a medical journal about a woman who suddenly became obsessed with ice chewing after her pregnancy. The doctor gave her high doses of iron. The above average dose was the point of the article. Within 11 days she no longer had cravings. Because it was a medical publication directed at doctors I decided to try it. I used Slow Fe iron I'm a spammer who can't get a job. Also, our product sucsk - don't buy from us. so not to suffer from iron overload. twice a day. The ice cravings I have a had for decades went away.

I don't think there is just one thing that causes this "addiction". Some say it is psychological, other say physiological and then there is the case for social conditioning. I think it is a combination all of the above. If there is an answer it will come from you looking at yourself. What works ass alleviation for someone may not be suitable for someone else.

Sorry for having gone on and one but I am so f*%$ing happy that I found this bulletin board. Who ever started it, THANK YOU.
happy
 
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