Metal Mouth Message Board

after another consultation today,(no braces yet) the orthodontist has said that after treatment my top set of teeth may protrude a bit, and she had to make me aware of this as its something i need to think about before going any further.

as i am a total newbie (age 38 LOL!) can anyone tell me if this is common? or if its happened to them?

i didn't ask how much by..doh, why is it you only think of these things when driving home? she did say they could take 2 teeth out to help this, but they are reluctant to take out perfectly good teeth unless they feel its neccesarry (sp?)

the way i feel at the moment is i'd rather have a protruding top set than wonky teeth..but i'd love to hear others experiences so i can mull it over:)

my teeth dont protrude right now, in fact my top set is more the opposite where they slant inwards a little.

thanks

Hi sunshine!

Welcome, and congrats on taking that first step towards beautiful teeth. Back in April of last year when I was braced, I was a newbie, too, at age 42 (going to be 43 in 3 days). What your ortho probably means is that there is only so much he can do for your teeth without having to resort to surgery. Our jaws have stopped growing, so aside from jaw surgery (which I would never consent to unless it was medically necessary), the most they can use to correct our teeth are braces, elastics, and various other interesting contraptions. I think the word "protrude" can be used to many extents: a millimeter or two, or quite a few millimeters. It depends on the state of your teeth when you start. I wouldn't be too scared by that word, but I definitely would ask for clarification as to "how much" of a protrusion he's talking about. A couple of millimeters really isn't that bad, once you check it out on a ruler!

If you want to see a rather large "protrusion", check out my pics on page 1 of my story. Lordy-be! I had no idea they were that bad until they took those "Mr. Ed" pics.

Good luck to you, and keep us posted!
-Cathy

thank you for the reply, luckily i'm not needing any jaw surgery, but she did explain i was kind of "complicated", but it could be dealt with, but probably wouldn't be perfect, which i am happy about.

sadly i wont be seeing her until april now as its a bit of a wierd situation...i live in a really remote area with no orthodontists, so we have visiting orthodontist who come to the area every 12 weeks for 2 weeks to do all the local visits etc.....but i will ask next time, just how much they will protrude. i'm really keen to get this done and if that is the only drawback i cant see it being a problem?

like you, cos i'm a bit older (nearly 39) i'm getting sick of people telling me "you've had wonky teeth this long, why fix it now?" and all the other usual comments:(...yawn.

The teeth are currently slanting inwards. Therefore, when they are at the proper angulation, they will be further forward. In other words, because of the incorrect current inclination, your upper and lower jaw discrepancy actually looks better than if your teeth were at the proper position relative to each jaw.

There have been several threads on this type of discrepancy between the upper and lower jaw, and they describe the various options for each particular situation. Good luck!

thankyou, that makes perfect sense...is there a particular name for calling teeth that slant inwards and maybe a name for the correction of this?

search "division 2" This should give you some info

thanks, i think that term was in one of the many phrases the orthodontist was rattling off!

I'm not sure what your ortho means by protrusion but if it means anything I think a slight overbite and protrusion is kinda "sexy". Just my 2 cents....