Metal Mouth Message Board

was wondering if anyones had surgery on maxilla to expand, rotate forward and bought down all at the same time?

Kristian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pb2QLQWQ-k

He seems to have had the most benefit. You can tell that his mid-face was really flat initially (due to his upper jaw). It's clear that, after they moved his upper jaw in the way you described it has made his face more "3d" which is attractive. He also lost some weight which helps his appearance in the before/after

I am having surgery on my upper jaw only (maxilla). They are going to move it forward and down a little bit. They offered the option to expand my upper jaw but to save me the $5000-ish for the extra surgery my orthodontist simply got them to take out a couple of extra teeth up there to make room during my impacted-wisdom tooth surgery.

I have to wear braces for 2 years (I'm 6 months into it now) and after another 1 year or so i'll be having the surgery since my teeth will be aligned enough.

The issues I have because of my upper jaw not growing very well are:

1 - Base of my nose is pretty far back which gives me what professionals call a "flat nose".

2 - My upper teeth never show when trying to smile, if anything I can get a very "thin" smile out of about 4mm of upper tooth.

3 - To compensate for the "underbite" my upper teeth have tilted forward so they reach over my lower teeth - my braces are going to make them go straight down again which will result in the actual "underbite" my current jaw positions are aligned for - surgery will then correct it.

Luckily though, I'm told my lower jaw has grown properly.

I admit, it's hard to find many people who have only an upper jaw issue of being "too short" or "far back" but for us it also results in the greatest aestetic changes because it pushes the base of the nose forward (which is apparently more attractive, generally speaking) and allows for a full smile.

I MAY have issues with my smile being a bit thin (eg. not a very wide/big smile) for my face after surgery, but my orthodontist told me the expansion of the upper jaw wouldn't have changed my appearance so I trusted him to save $5000 - if he's wrong and it is something I want fixed I may be able to correct it later. The same thing with the nose - they tell me a nose job is something they do at the same time but I'm going to ignore them on that because, I only know if I want my nose to look different AFTER surgery since its appearance might turn out good by itself.