Post SARPE surgery-expander & palatal arch

[SandraJ93]

Hi everyone. I had my SARPE surgery on the 14th of March. 3 days after the surgery I was told to start activating the expander twice daily. Unfortunately two weeks after the surgery my expander became loose and had to be taken off, which obviously meant that my jaw started reversing. My ortho had to do new moulds and fit a new expander. And last week on Friday it became loose again so I went back to my ortho yesterday and he took it off, put a new glue on it and put it back on again. He was happy for me to stop turning the expander since the expansion was sufficient-although honestly in my opinion I would give it another week to expand a little bit more but surely he knows what he's doing. He told me he wants to see me in 4 weeks time and he's going to take the RME off and put in a "palatal arch" (I think it's the TPA). So I have a few questions here. Did anyone else experience problems with their expander becoming loose etc? Also what do you think about having the RME removed only a month after finishing the expansion? Because from what I think the bones will not have grown back into place after a month and when he removes the RME to fit in the palatal arch the jaw will start reversing or am I wrong?

[jaime]

Hi Sandra,

I can't comment on the loose expander since I didn't experience that but that sounds like such a pain! I wonder why he couldn't get it to stay? Mine was a nightmare getting on because my teeth were so crowded, I felt like I didn't even need glue.

My expander was left in for 5 months after my SARPE but my ortho tended to be pretty conservative in how he does things. The purpose of the TPA is to hold the expansion, so you shouldn't have any narrowing.

[woollymammoth]

The TPA will hold the expansion. A couple of millimeters more or less expansion won't make a difference anyway. The orthos can adjust to it. Good luck.