Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi everybody!

My case
I have a severe open bite and me bottom teeth are crowded and I have a receded chin. I have had some issues the last three years. September 2010 I was sent to the ortho and one month later I met the surgeon. Still nothing has happened though. My ortho called last week and said they did not know whether to pull two teeth out in my bottom jaw to give more space or to give me some sort of implant to get rid of my receded chin. Pulling teeth out means that they can move my teeth more with braces and therefore shift my jaws more on surgery and make the aestethics of my ching better Therefore I have not gotten braces yet. I will have surgery on my upper as well as my lower jaw. It has also been discuessed whether it is necessary to widen my upper jaw (dont know what this means, but if it must be done it should be done before I get me braces on, if i understood correctly)

My issues
My issues is that everything is taking so long and I have major issues. I only bite together with 1-2 teeth on right and left side. My problems are that my jaws now and then snap togheter really hard unintentionally. This can also happen during night which makes me wake up and have anxiety. This is extremely painful both physically and psychicially.
I also have difficulties relaxing my jaw, also meaning my back teeth meet unintentionally quite often, sometimes it hurts as well. I also have some problems chewing, however if I have pain it often disappears when I eat, which I think is strange. I also feel that my bite is changing from one day to another and sometimes I have most issues with my right jaw and sometimes with my left. It seems like some things seems to increase my problems: exercising medium-heavy weights at the gym, lying on my side with a hand under my head, sometimes when I turn my head to the side and when my body feel sore and tired and if I talk for a long time or with great enthusiasm. Anybody knowing why this might be the case or feeling the same way?

Sum Up Questions
My point is that I could take the pain, but I feel so anxious about how much I must ruin my teeth while doing this and knowing I have at least 1-1,5 years until surgery. Anybody feeling the same way or is having something that calm me down, I would appreciate.
How much does these things actually ruin the teeth?
Did you have to pull any teeth out and how was the result? (I have already pulled I think 2 in the top and 1 in the bottom when I was a kid)
Anybody having the same issues please write some comments about your story.
How long time did it take for your from first meating with ortho to braces and later to surgery?

Any other comments are welcommed!

Centric is when both joints are functioning perfectly. That is, when the
'balls' of the lower jaw, the condyles as we dentists call them, are fitting precisely in their sockets,. When this occurs lower and upper teeth don't fit together like they do while chewing. There's a discrepancy--maybe a fraction of an inch difference. You may have noticed this when viciously chewing gum or food when all the sudden you hit a tooth seems to be the way ;it's like finding a rock in your food. You have unconsciously shifted to Centric. The brain has programmed the chewing muscles to stay within the chewing pattern; you seldom get out of it, but this is not true when you sleep. The chewing program quits working when we sleep; we chew, so to speak, on those ‘in the way teeth’ causing many problems.

The condyles know where centric is when the jaw is balanced. A balanced bite splint can simulate a balanced jaw, for a while, but equilibrating
the teeth makes it permanent.

Sleep clenching can ‘overwork’ muscles to the point that they develop micro spasms (sort ofmicro-charley-horses). These spasms can simulate a headache, a jaw ache, an earache, ora neck ache. www.clenchingsydrome.com

Thanks for your reply.

Regarding the centric bite. In the mornings when waking up I often have more contact between my upper and lower teeth – is this because the bite is adjusting from centric bite to my awake bite?

I have read the documents on the clenchingsyndrome page. Quite exciting. However it raises some questions.

My dentist and ortho tells me that my open bite causes me to clench my teeth. In this sense, it would be impossible for me to stop clenching. According to the website it is the clenching that is causing my problems. And if I not had any clenching I would not have problems even though I have a severe open bite? Is the surgery not going to fix my problems?

When I first met my dentist some years ago and told her my problems, she shaved down my back teeth just a smudge. Can this have been a reason causing more problems for me? Because the problems where not huge until she did this.

I guess wearing some kind of bite splint is not up to question, because I should have braces and later on I am having upper and lower surgery, however dont know exactly when.

Thankful for your reply!

I know that open bites are a hard to treat, and I think they put the crossover guidance on the bicuspids and also adjust the back teeth so their not guiding the jaw. I think the owner of the book has an e-mail for questions. My daughter just started the splint for a jaw that pops and gets stuck and also causes pain. As the jaw starts to relax with the splint they keep adjusting the splint until all the teeth hit the splint at the same time. This tricks your jaw into thinking its balanced when u take the splint out you should feel the teeth that are hitting wrong and get them aquilibrated. We are not at that point yet. you might be able to email him and see if there is a dentist in your area who does this



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yes when your sleeping your bite would go into centric and the too tall teeth is what u would be clenching on. As far as an open bite causing clenching, everybody clenches some more than others.

No one knows why we clench our teeth when sleeping. Some of us clench a lot while others
do not, but everyone clenches; I have never had a patient that did not. A dentist may tell you
that you don't but he or she may not familiar with the signs and symptoms of sleepclenching.
The signs and symptoms may be unnoticeable to you but they are there. On the other
hand, a heavy clencher will have some sever dental problems or serious head and neck
pain. If you dream you clench. That said, squeezing our teeth together when sleeping is perfectly
normal and needed; it is nothing to be ashamed of. sleep clenching helps align teeth during the eruption process (from clenching syndrome)

inadvertent changes in a patient’s bite can exacerbate SC problems.
We often change the way teeth fit with dental procedures. Changing the way teeth
fit will change the way the jaw functions. Changing one’s bite can increase damage from
SC trauma. It gives a patient something new to clench on. Whether a change in bite
causes problems depends on the patient’s ability to adapt to the change. Some patients
can adapt to gross changes, but some get into serious trouble with slight changes.