Ok folks, I've been using the mouthguard and shoelaces for about 5 weeks or so. I don't pull for very long (probably only about 5mins or so), and there have been a few days that I missed.
It was hard to chart the progress for a while mostly because my face gets puffy very easily and I have chronic fatigue and am always trying out new detoxes etc. which set me off. So there were days that I was looking in the mirror and thinking 'wow, my eyes are so puffy and weird (or something) and does my face always look like this??' And I couldn't tell what face pulling was doing as my face would flare up and it was as though the face staring back at me was quite distorted.
Many years ago I had some terrible dentistry done, and one of the things that I had to do was wear this wire thing that clamped around my upper back teeth whilst I slept. It was supposed to push my back teeth further back to 'theoretically' create more room for my other teeth that were cramped and not sitting straight. Now of course I realise that this thing was effectively pushing my mandible back, and doing the very opposite to what I'm now doing with the shoelaces and mouthguard.
All that time of wearing this thing to bed every night resulted in quite a flat face. Though I'm only really realising how flat it was now.
The biggest thing for me has been that I'm starting to get a chin! It is a bit weird getting used to seeing it there, and when I look at my face from 3/4 it seems odd to have to pop out at me, as opposed to being receding.
And I think I've also noticed that the bridge of my nose is coming out further - something which freaked me out at first, as my immediate thought was 'my god my nose is getting bigger!' But what is happening is that the whole face is slowly starting to gain more dimension, and so my eyes are simultaneously seeming more deep set.
All the changes so far are miniscule though really, we are talking fractions of a millimeter here, especially as I don't have a helmet so don't do it for 30mins.
I'm sure that no one else has noticed anything different!
As to whether I look better, it is hard to say. I probably look more balanced as the lower half of my face isn't receding so much. Though my face, to me, looks more boney. As it was flatter, it seems more harsh now and as though I need extra bits of fat. But as it is my face it is hard to tell which bits I'm simply getting used to.
I have taken some lowish light photos just with the camera on my laptop, and I can see more clearly in those that my face somehow seems more compact, less long, less frowney and more pleasing. When I look in the mirror though, I see a face that is slightly different, not necessarily better, or more classically good-looking, just a little different, more sculptural, more harsh, and the skin/bags under my eyes seems to bulge more (something the camera doesn't pick up).
The differences between what the camera likes and what the eye prefers is interesting. The camera definitely likes more sculptural qualities. Whilst in the flesh sometimes I feel like I miss some of the softer bits that used to be there. Though I also know that my face was/is problematic in that it is asymmetrical and crooked, and whilst I have high cheekbones, they were fairly non-existent directly under my eye, and that part is now becoming slightly fuller and less sunken.
I will definitely keep going as I have back issues and feel that it must come from the jaw. That is my main aim actually, a hope that doing this will sort out other structural issues I have.
Finally I haven't noticed any differences in how people approach me, or my relation to the world, as others have reported.
Though now that I think more carefully about it, maybe I am a little less withdrawn, possibly not so much in my behaviour, but in the sense of simply wanting to move out into whatever is before me without hesitation. It is all still early days though.
Hope everyone else is going well.