Metal Mouth Message Board

Hi all,

I had SARPE surgery back on 16 February. Over about 3 weeks I did 39 turns of the expansion plate and then stopped.

This is a short timelapse videos of the gap opening up - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IvOHPHlE1o

I went for a checkup with my surgeon a week or so ago (so about 7 weeks post op) and he was really surprise how my two front teeth have moved back together since I've stopped the turning.

I don't think it's a big issue as I get my braces on in a week which will straighten them out but it was just interesting how shocked the oral surgeon was that they had done this. He even took a pic and sent it to my orthodontist. I reckon it's the gum muscle memory moving them back in. Years ago when I first had braces (I was about 12) they were in a similar position.

Here's how they moved in and overlapped - http://imgur.com/a/RgcSs

Anyone else had something similar happen?

My ortho put braces on and the gap closed within 2 hrs. It hurt sooo much. So no, the gap wasn't closing that much on it's own.

My gap is kinda similar than yours and after 7 weeks of not expanding the gap has closed but only a little. I guess it is different for every person. Orthos can fix anything within mm!

It definitely does seem to be different for everyone. This whole jaw widening and aligning process is quite incredible really.

Braces are booked in on Monday. It'll be interesting to see what my ortho thinks of the overlap because last time he saw me was when I had a decent gap and he told me to stop expanding - so a lot has changed

I've had my braces on for almost 48 hours and my front two teeth have almost completely moved so they are not overlapped anymore (see pic in first post pre brace).

This seems really quick to me - on top of how quick the gap was to close up - so I did a bit of research.

I was diagnosed with osteoporosis a couple of years back. It seems that having osteo generates more osteclasts which breaks down the bone and makes the teeth move more quickly. Because I don't take anything for it (other than calcium tablets now and then) I didn't make the connection until now.

Thought you guys might find this interesting. Journal article is below

Osteoporosis has been found to change the speed of tooth movement.
Yamashiro et al.,[22] Tan et al.,[23] reported a correlation between
increased tooth movement and an increased number of osteoclasts
in ovariotomized rats.
http://sjod.org/eJournals/_eJournals/7_ ... RTICLE.pdf