Metal Mouth Message Board

I have a deep bite and my Dr said he is going to try to open it up as much as he can by bringing my teeth higher. Right now he is just working on leveling the bottom arch.

I was wondering does chewing gum or any other type of sticky food slow down the process of the leveling. Some teeth are moving up and some are moving down. So I was wondering if I was at all slowing the process at all.

Good question.. I have wondered the same thing. Plus I have been clenching my teeth big time at night, I wonder what that is doing to my progress.. I have a deep bite also..

How do they level teeth and what is that exactly?

Leveling the natural curvature of the lower arch (curved in profile from a side view) is made much harder in folks that have strong muscles of mastication. Most really deep patients are deep b/c of the strong muscluture. Conversely, openbite patients routinely have weak oro-facial musculature. You may need a bite plate to leave an open "freeway" space between the back teeth to allow unhindered eruption of the lower back teeth to level the bite or Curve of Spee if you will.

dr.j

Thanks for the reply Dr. J. Next adjustment I will mention this to my ortho and see what he thinks too. I just wanted a bit of a heads up before I went in there.

Thanks again.

I am one of the "deep bite" crowd and my curve was really comething else. It leveled out pretty quickly, though. I think the fact that I have been sleeping with my mouth open (ew!) since I got braces helped. JMO, but I think my teeth got a good break from the clenching at night this way.