Metal Mouth Message Board

I'm 21, and in braces for the second time to correct a very severe posterior open bite. Apparently, my mouth is such a rare case they are going to put me in the books.

I was fourteen when I got braces, and had them for three years in attempt to correct the open bite with elastics only. Obviously, this didn't work, so I took a break from ortho work and changed my orthodontist. Prior to this, I had my palate expanded with excellent results and improved airway and smile.

I'm scheduled for my first jaw surgery on Monday, which will be stretching of bone. My surgeon had taken two molds: one with extractions and the other without. Mind you, I had taken out one ankylosed tooth on the bottom a few years prior, and although the gap hasn't fully closed, I notice tipping of the teeth on that side and smaller overall jaw on the extraction site.

My surgeon said that I could have my teeth ( the remaining three 2nd molars - I have no wisdom teeth.) extracted or I could just leave them. I have no dental crowding. (Dental crowding I believe would be better off treated with expansion devices instead of pulling out healthy teeth.) and the teeth, although have not yet fully erupted, are not coming out sideways or crooked. He said that if I left them, there will be more work for my orthodontist to do.

I decided against the extractions as I believe it would destroy my facial profile. My arches are not exceptionally wide to begin with and I have little room for my tongue as it is. My face is also oval-ish and I do not have prominent cheekbones at all.

I also believe that most people look better with expanding the jaws rather than pulling out healthy teeth and pulling everything back. It's an outdated, lazy option in my opinion, since almost always the face is slightly or severely damaged, the nose will look bigger, the chin and jaws recede, and makes you look older and disrupts the airway. Even people with "buck" teeth would look better with bringing the lower jaw forwards, not pulling the upper jaw back. There are several case studies on twins who no longer look like twins after one twin went with extractions, but anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here.

Who else went the non-extraction route?

Not trying to come off as snarky at all here, but you're sort of criticizing the removal of healthy teeth to correct crowding...in favor of literally breaking the jaw, cutting into and compromising the integrity of otherwise healthy bone, and then stretching it. You do see the absurdity in that, right?

Regardless of which route you go, it's an entirely unnatural thing to be doing and it seems to me that the "best" option is the one that will produce the best results for a particular patient. To call one procedure or the other "lazy" or "outdated" is a rather narrow, prescriptive outlook. It's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but it sounds pretty rigid and unrealistic to me. There are, in fact, many people who would do better to have teeth extracted than to undergo jaw surgery.

I should have been more specific. it's not a bone stretching procedure. It's merely sawing between the teeth where the bone is, and then closing the bite as much as the bone would move with elastics. And then rotation of both jaws tp close the open bite (2nd surgery)

^ Uh, yeah... I'm gonna go ahead and still stand by everything I said before.

Could you link to the several episodes with twins?

[quote="bdsfkw"]Could you link to the several episodes with twins?[/quote]

I haven't been very active on here, so I'm sorry for the very late response.

Here's the segment of the twin case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe7OI-PdTno