I'm getting a Le Fort 1 advancement without braces next week

[CaliforniaKid]

@toast

your teeth don't necessarily have to be "straight" for jaw surgery. in fact, for many operations the teeth have to be literally bucked out in order for the jaws to be moved in their correct, natural positions.

i met with a lot of mediocre surgeons, but not one said i could have the surgery without braces. and my teeth were very straight.

the braces serve multiple purposes in pre and post-jaw surgery. post-jaw surgery braces are manipulated by the ortho and oral surgeon to tighten (or loosen) the teeth according to the new movement of the jaw. and the jaw doesn't settle immediately, it takes time to heal and the healing process is very delicate.

i would get a quick second opinion if i were in your position. and don't tell them your situation with your current OS, just ask how they would approach your condition. if they mention braces in the treatment process...that should be a flag. ask how they could do the surgery w/o braces.

[tonightwefly]

[quote="toastman"]I'll keep a long story as short as I can. I got my braces off when I was 18 and I'm now 26. I always wore my retainer and my teeth have remained 90% straight.
My first visit with my surgeon, he told me what he was going to do, and mentioned that I would more than likely need braces for several months pre-surgery and several months post op. I told him there was no damn way I was going to wear those metal things in my mouth again. So after taking my molds, he went to another room . He came back with good news, saying I can undergo the upper jaw advancement without braces before, because my molds fit 90% perfect. In other words, my bite would be 90% perfect (which is fine with me!) The way he does this is by moving the upper mold in the way he plans on doing so in the surgery, and if the teeth meet properly, than you can do the surgery without braces. Apparently I'm a very rare case. He also mentioned that I could get invisalign braces after the surgery to fine tune everything to make it 100% perfect if I wanted to .

Now I'm kind of nervous doing this surgery because I have only found several people who had jaw surgery without braces, but only like 2 or 3. They seemed to be happy. But they were from old videos or posts. I would like to meet someone who has done the same procedure without braces.

Let me also say that my surgeon is one of the best in the city (Montreal) and is on the board of directors of. Maxillo-facial surgery in Quebec, and he has excellent ratings. He and his partner (who will be helping with the surgery) are in the top 10 rated oral surgeons in the city (I dunno if that means anything even haha)[/quote]

I know i"m pulling up an old thread, but I am very interested in how things turned out for you, since we are from the same area - Montreal. Would you be able to tell me who it is you went to see for surgery? Did you see the surgeon first without having an orthodontist? I do not have an orthodontist at the moment. I'm wondering if I'll need one first.

It's exciting to hear that it may be possible to get invisilign braces after the surgery because if that's the case, I wouldn't mind wearing braces. I've had braces before and do not want to go through the whole process again if I could.

[azjaw]

This is an interesting prospect. I am afraid I might not have sufficient funds to have the surgery for a couple years but I hate to think of getting my braces off and then having to get them put on again. And having them on for 2 years sounds almost as bad.