Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi folks, reading through many excellent posts here... although I do
find the search function quite poor... but anyhow

I'm soon to be having both upper & lower jaw surgery. Lower rotated
to fix midline but upper moved forward I think 4 or 5 mm to fix a
mild underbite. My OS mentioned the possibility of also moving the
upper down 2mm to show more teeth but I'm afraid of being left with a
bit of a gummy smile.

At the moment if I want to show much teeth (for a photo for example)
I have to pretty much excert a lot of effort to do so (think joker
from batman), in this instance a small bit of gumline can be seen.
Same too for when I laugh I guess. During a regular smile or talk
teeth (and gums) can't really be seen too clearly.

On the face of it then it seems like moving upper down will be quite
beneficial to producing a really nice smile, however I'm concerned
that in conjuction with a forward movement I will show too much gum
on smiling. I mean forward movement alone results in more teeth being
shown, no? If the teeth are more forward won't the lips go back more?
so if forward by 5mm shows the right amount of teeth will down by 2mm
overdo it?

Also if upper is moved down, where do it go? Does my lower have to
rotated downward to accomodate it?

Sorry for all the questions. I will obviously discuss my concerns
with my OS but until then, just looking for your take on this???

Thanks in advance.

I had my upper moved forward and my lower moved back to correct an underbite and I now show more gum than I did before the surgery. In my opinion, yes, you can expect to have a more gummy smile simply because of the dynamics you describe above. When the top teeth move forward, more gum shows when you smile and pull your top lip back.

Regardless of showing more gum, I have a better smile now then before surgery.

thanks karl, thats what I figured, that the forward movement alone would show more teeth anyhow, I'll speak to my OS about the pros versus cons of moving upper jaw down too.

Any more input from those who had upper jaw moved up & or down.

Thanks.