Metal Mouth Message Board

I'm nearing the end of my treatment and so it is time to overanalyze everything...

I hope I can word this in a way that makes sense. When I let my jaw close naturally, only my front two teeth touch the bottom teeth.

However, when I purposefully make my teeth all touch by moving my bottom jaw backwards a little - it feels uncomfortable to hold that position.

Is this normal? That's the position I always do when the ortho asks me to close my mouth, and now I'm wondering if I should have been doing the comfortable position all this time.

Please let me know if this makes sense or if I should explain further. I'm worried that I haven't been showing my true bite!

Thanks!

You need to talk to your ortho asap. If it bothers you now it's def gonna continue to bother you after your braces are removed. I had a similar problem after my first round of treatment. I had to pull my bottom jaw back to fit behind my top from teeth. After a few months in my second treatment my jaw now rests properly. I don't know how I dealt with it for so long.

sandiego88 wrote:You need to talk to your ortho asap. If it bothers you now it's def gonna continue to bother you after your braces are removed. I had a similar problem after my first round of treatment. I had to pull my bottom jaw back to fit behind my top from teeth. After a few months in my second treatment my jaw now rests properly. I don't know how I dealt with it for so long.

I can't believe I never made the connection before that it isn't normal. I've just never had a good bite before so I wasn't sure if that is how it is supposed to be.

I unfortunately don't have another appointment until November and just had a permanent retainer installed on my bottom teeth yesterday.

I recently moved 2 hours away, so it is really hard for me to get time off to go to the ortho.

EDIT: How did they fix your bite? Elastics?

I took some pictures to illustrate what I mean.

Second one looks like The teeth are in the right position. Can you call ortho?

Probably really confusing.

My original teeth before treatment: My bottom front teeth flared in towards my tongue and my top front teeth were straight down. resting jaw position was good.

After 1st treatment: my bottom front teeth flared out towards my lips. I constantly hit my front teeth together. my resting position was front teeth touching (no molars/premolars touching). to keep my mouth shut I had to pull my bottom jaw backward.

During second treatment: the first month I kept hitting the front the teeth. it was a pain. The arch wire widened my arches (top was pretty narrow) and the bottom teeth pulled in a bit/stopped flaring out.

I would think you could just used class 3 elastics (pulls bottom teeth in and top teeth out) to get them into the proper position. But your ortho should be able to pull your X-rays and compare them. Not sure what it's called but the one with your entire skull. Also, if your teeth have proper bite your ortho might be able to use a reverse arch wire to move the front teeth vertically so that when your front teeth touch the others also touch.

Forgot to mention that my first treatment gave me a deep bite (another reason for my front teeth hitting so much). My front teeth has significantly opened.

Disclaimer: just my opinions from researching after I had a really crappy ortho for the first round.

Ahh, One other thing. I did complain to my ortho about the very same thing about 2 months into my treatment. He said that sometimes its a sign that you're a good elastics wearer. I had class 2 elastics (pulls bottom forward and top backward) and while in elastics I always wanted to stretch my bottom jaw forward. Like all the time. I use to take them off to stretch.

If you;re in elastics try taking them off for like a day and see if it's any better. When my ortho tests my bite he pushes really hard on my bottom jaw (in the backward direction) and asks me to bite down.

I'm now a year into treatment and I never hit my front teeth or find myself resting them on top of each other like I used to.

Thank you for sharing your story!

I called my ortho and they were able to fit me in next week. I think they said they are still going to go ahead and place me other permanent retainer on my top teeth also. So even if I am crazy and my bite is fine - at least my treatment will be moved up.

My bite is definitely improved when I have the elastic in and I am VERY good about keeping on top of it. When I take it out, my jaw always reverts back to the comfortable position.

I don't know much about classes but I hope you are right that they can fix it with elastics! That would be a relief. I use bern H4 4mm elastic right now on one side of my mouth.

I just wanted to jump in and say don't feel crazy. I worry about the same thing all the time.

They always tell me to bite down and they look. Later I worry if I closed my mouth the "right" way because it has felt different every day since they put the braces on so I don't know what the correct position "feels" like anymore. And mind you....this is when you are in a chair resting half upside down and someone has already had their hand in your mouth for 30 minutes and tightened all that good hardware up for you!

Like you, I don't think my bite was good to start so I am not 100% sure where the "right" bite is. I seem to sometimes move my jaw to a different place too. Like when I am working/typing- my jaw tends to rest differently. Hard to describe.

The one thing that I am relying on is that I apparently close my mouth pretty tightly at night (I hope I am not grinding -I never did before) so when I wake up, my mouth/teeth are closed and the bite seems to feel pretty good. I've noticed this. So, I am thinking that at night they are going to the "natural" bite place.

Keep us posted. I am very interested to know what happens with you and what your ortho says.

I think it is completely normal!

Earlier this month I had my second adjustment, which I had molar build ups to prevent me from biting off my molar brackets. Ever since then my bite feels like it changes every single night! I have no clue how people in elastics deal with it, but I'm set to find out in the next few months.

I'm glad you were able to contact your ortho and get it checked out! You're paying quite a bit for your treatment so it's only fair you get everything done the way you want it. :)

LisainTX wrote:I just wanted to jump in and say don't feel crazy. I worry about the same thing all the time.

They always tell me to bite down and they look. Later I worry if I closed my mouth the "right" way because it has felt different every day since they put the braces on so I don't know what the correct position "feels" like anymore. And mind you....this is when you are in a chair resting half upside down and someone has already had their hand in your mouth for 30 minutes and tightened all that good hardware up for you!

Like you, I don't think my bite was good to start so I am not 100% sure where the "right" bite is. I seem to sometimes move my jaw to a different place too. Like when I am working/typing- my jaw tends to rest differently. Hard to describe.

The one thing that I am relying on is that I apparently close my mouth pretty tightly at night (I hope I am not grinding -I never did before) so when I wake up, my mouth/teeth are closed and the bite seems to feel pretty good. I've noticed this. So, I am thinking that at night they are going to the "natural" bite place.

Keep us posted. I am very interested to know what happens with you and what your ortho says.

I had my appointment today. I sat down with my ortho and discussed pictures from before my treatment and the mold of my mouth pretreatment. He said that I came in with a very severe V shaped top jaw and a U shaped bottom jaw, which caused a lot of my bite issues. He also said that because I grew up with different shaped jaws, I probably used many different bites to smile, chew food, etc. etc. I used to have very bad TMJ issues before braces too which were likely caused by the same issue. Although my TMJ problem has been MUCH better since orthodontic treatment.

Basically, he said to REALLY fix my bite I would need jaw surgery (I promptly googled and now I am scared!).

For now we are going to get my permanent retainer on top, talk with my dentist about securing the extra space left for when I eventually lose my baby canine and can get an implant (it was not viable to try and bring my adult canine down - had it extracted), and then revisit the bite issue/whether I want to pursue surgery.

I should have more of an update next month. For now I am going to try not to think about the possibility of jaw surgery.

Ahhh, I see. I agree. Please don't worry about it. Take the whole braces experience one day at a time. Also, I recommend not looking online. Every time I look online I scare myself to death. You can find the worst things in the world online!
You will be fine, I bet! Have faith.