Metal Mouth Message Board

Hello
I have had a bonded haas in my mouth for 9 days now. Ive turned it 8 times so far. I have no gap yet. My ortho says that every time I turn the key the appliance will increace by a quarter of a millimetre. I have to turn it 20 times all together. Does this mean that my gap can potentially only become 3 millimetres????

If you are an adult there is a great likelyhood that you may never get a gap b/c your bones are too mature. For this reason many folks have a SARPE - surgically assited rapid palatal expandsion. Basically what you have but with a jaw sugrgery to free up the upper jaw from its fusion down the middle and remove the resistance of the zygomatic buttress i.e. the root of the cheeck bone just in front of your upper molar.

It may be that your teeth will just be tipped out. Sometimes adults are successfully expanded non-surgically but the quality of the expansion: skeletal vs. dental tipoing is not as good as with SARPE or as on a pre-adolescent.