Metal Mouth Message Board

Dear members,

I have a crossbite and (lower) jaw asymmetry. I am trying to seriously decide whether to go for a treatment or not.

This is how it started. I noticed a slight midline deviance several years ago. And I wanted to do something about it, otherwise nobody had noticed. I am 32 now.

I went for consultations to 5 orthodontist and each one of them gave me a different opinion. All of them agree that my crossbite might be possible to fix with braces only, but 2 out of them think it would be best to consider surgery. One of them thinks surgery would give perfect result but doesn't think I should undergo it. And the last two say surgery would be overkill for my case and I should not go for it.

Up until this point I had not noticed my jaw was asymmetrical, but ever since this was pointed out I have trouble sleeping and every picture of mine I see I see my jaw pointing to the right.

If you want, please, look at these pictures. One of them is snapshot of my teeth from my dentist and the second is my face from the front. I did not include the pictures from profile, I am actually happy with my profile:

http://bracejourney.tk/ortho.jpg
http://bracejourney.tk/ortho2.jpg

What do you think?

- I know that surgery carries risks and this is heavy surgery
- If I go for surgery is better result guaranteed?
- I don't know how significant my problem is. Honestly, it did not bother me until age of 30
- my friends and family say I should not go for any surgery at all

So I need to weight all these pros and cons. Obviously, it is an expensive, risky procedure and can have also negative implications. I can still go for a compromise which is adjusting the teeth according to the jaws and disguise the problem.

Anyone who went through the same mental process can give me any comment to it?
Thanks everyone !!

Hey Inoah,

Here's my 2 cents having gone through jaw surgery...

The surgery is a major undertaking and carries risk as you've already mentioned. It's also quite an extensive recovery process for some... it was for me. It took months before I felt normal again. If I were you I would read through the risks and ask yourself if you think your situation warrants the risks. Can you live with an "imperfect" bite where your midlines might be off by a few mm? Many people do not have perfectly symmetrical faces/teeth.

Do you have any functional problems with your bite/speech/mouth/jaw? A lot of people decide to get the surgery to fix those functional issues in addition.

If you scroll through some of the posts here you'll see that a better result is not guaranteed - a small percentage (a lot of surgeons quote 5%) go through re-dos or relapse.

Personally - if orthodontists are telling you they can correct most of the problem with braces I would opt for that option since you would not have the surgery risks and not have to deal with the recovery.

Hope that helps.

Jdon

I would like a good trade off. If surgery is the best trafe off I wlll want to get the surgery, but maybe braces will suffice. Or maybe doing nothing would be the best, because as I read the forum and the internet there people complain about a relapse occassionaly. I am really just trying to sort my mind here and ask people their experience. Sometimes I feel like asking a surgeon if I need a surgery is like asking a barber if I need a haircut.

Do I have any functional problems with your bite/speech/mouth/jaw? Rarely I do have jaw clicking, and when I do it only last a few hours. I may have a problem with my speech, however, that problem started when I learned about my jaws being assymetrical, so I don't know if I should attribute it to my jaws or my psychology.

Allegedly, the problem cannot be corrected by braces only to 100%. Maybe it will be 80-90% and I will take 2 years wearing elastics. On the other hand, one orthodontist says, surgery would give 100% result, and maybe I could be a candidate for so-called surgery firt which would be only one year procedure.

Thank you very much for your input and experience Jdon !!!