Bracing causes jaw alignment to worsen?

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#1 Post by **Schnapple** » Thu Aug 05, 2010 9:24 am

I have had my braces in for 18 months now. I have heard that having braces can align the teeth making them more straight, but the appearance of the bite in the mouth worsens - This seems to be the case here, as the teeth alignment is straight, but the bite/jaw alignment has deviated more towards the left.

Is this normal? Am I suppose to see this? :\

I have had elastics in too. I have heard that elastics can make things worse?

Appreciate any responses. Thanks

#2 Post by **isolde** » Thu Aug 05, 2010 12:51 pm

That sounds about normal! It may be that your jaw(s) is/are slightly to the side and braces have highlighted this (teeth are pretty clever and naturally try to align themselves to each other so it was probably unnoticeable to you until now), and if that's the case it will be corrected in surgery (mine was too). My top jaw was off centre slightly and so moved to the centre, and my bottom jaw had one extra mm taken out of one side as it was a little off centre as well.

Don't worry. Nothing in our bodies is perfectly symmetrical after all!

#3 Post by **isolde** » Thu Aug 05, 2010 1:04 pm

*nothing in our body

I hate that we can't edit!

#4 Post by **ColoradoGirl** » Thu Aug 05, 2010 10:16 pm

Totally struggling with that! My recessed chin is *way* worse/more noticable than it was before ortho treatment. But, my jaw is more comfortable, and I see truly how much my bite is messed up (much as I dislike it for aesthetic reasons...chin? What chin? Absent!) Also, keeping my mouth open for the ortho more than about a minute and a half is painful, which they say is not normal, so I hope this too will improve. All for the good, hopefully.