Metal Mouth Message Board

This question is for invisalign wearers. Are you experiencing the same sunken in face effect as the traditional braces wearers?

Alot of the people in the metal mouth board are experiencing sunken faces, prominent cheek bones, etc.

Any feedback would help us solve this problem.

This usually happens if a person has a lot of extractions. I don't believe that Invisalign is recommended for people who have extractions.

i have not had any extractions and I still have the sunken face look.

alot of people who have experienced it, have not had any extractions. which is why we're trying to figure out what's happening.

For some reason I find this topic very interesting. Maybe it's because I'm interested in having a good smile to look nicer, and if I want a nice smile then I also want the general face area to look nice also.

I don't think my face appearance has changed. I do believe that moving the teeth around will have some effect on the way the face looks. Some people will notice a very small change and some won't.

If Invisalign changes the way a face looks then it could be because the person lost or gained weight. It could be because some face muscles got stronger or weaker during treatment. Maybe the jaws come together closer or farther apart than before. The lips and skin around the mouth must sit slightly differently after the teeth move, so there must be a small effect. And just getting older causes the face to look older, especially through one's teens and 20's, so one would look older simply from being in Invisalign for 2 years.

On the other hand, I think some of how we see ourselves is linked to how we feel about ourselves, so if we are slightly depressed or something we may imagine that our face now looks more sunken than before.

I've only experienced a slight change in how my lower lip lies - simply because a protuding tooth (that pushed my lip forward slightly) is now back in line.

Otherwise no changes to my facial structure - probably because:

• No work is being done on my bite
  No teeth are being extracted
  No expansion of the posterior teeth is being done
  No "pulling back" of the anterior teeth is being done
  The external outline of my teeth is probably only changing a millimetre here and there
  Oh and my weight has stayed the same

Since I have protruding teeth both top and bottom which are due to be pulled back somewhat in the treatment, I am indeed hoping that my jaw is going to appear less bulky and my profile look a bit better by the end of the treatment.

Much depends on what treatment is working to do. I have a deep overbite with front teeth tilted inward. I'll end up with my jaw slightly lower and a little forward. Most of these changes are small enough and happen over a long enough period, your friends won't notice. My case isn't typical Invisalign, so I'll probably have more pronounced changes than most.