How far apart should the upper and lower incisors be?

[shutmymouth]

For some reason it appears that my jaw may have been moved too far forward. I fully realize that there maybe room for my orthodontist too tilt my central and lateral incisors back some. The question is when everything is done how should your upper and lower teeth fit together? My lower front teeth don’t touch my upper teeth at all. I’ve been trying to bite into things and while my ability to bite into food has improved in comparison to before (went from only using one tooth on the side to using all of my front teeth.) I notice that I still cannot bite through my food completely. My back teeth are virtually fully clenched and the food does not break away. I wind up doing some sort of gnawing action.

I have found that if I move my lower jaw forward I am able to cut through my teeth quite nicely. Is this normal, am I supposed to move my lower jaw forward when biting into food? Or should I be able to just use a basic up and down action with the lower jaw to properly “cut” into my food with my teeth.

TIA

[shutmymouth]

Here are some pics of my new bite.

Since I dont know what a proper bite is supposed to look like I was wondering if yall could tell me if this is right.

I know I have some straightening to go but will the Ortho be able to fix my bite more? Or is this essentially my final bite?

[LAJaw]

Your incisors should be touching. My understanding is that surgeons give underbite patients a bit of an overbite on purpose to anticipate relapse. Everyone relapses to a certain degree as the bone fracture knits and firms up. The overbite is small enough your ortho should have no problems correcting it.

I think I had my surgery about a month behind you and my bite is really similar to yours with a 1-2 mm gap between top and bottom incisors. My ortho mentioned that he will correct it, but first he is getting my molars to touch properly.

[chicago29]

Your bite is extremely good...Your top and bottom teeth shouldn't touch at all. The normal is 1 to 3 mm of "overjet".

[LAJaw]

I"m a little confused - if your incisors don't touch how can you properly bite something thin? When I had my underbite I couldn't bite through certain foods because they were smaller than the gap in my underjet. Wouldn't the same thing happen with thin foods in an overjet?

[Ronniexo]

LAJaw wrote:
> Your incisors should be touching. My understanding is that surgeons give underbite
> patients a bit of an overbite on purpose to anticipate relapse. Everyone relapses
> to a certain degree as the bone fracture knits and firms up. The overbite is small
> enough your ortho should have no problems correcting it.
>
> I think I had my surgery about a month behind you and my bite is really similar to
> yours with a 1-2 mm gap between top and bottom incisors. My ortho mentioned that
> he will correct it, but first he is getting my molars to touch properly.


I have the exact same problem. I got my braces off a month ago & my top jaw is clearly too dominant. Was that something that the ortho was supposed to fix? My bite looks a lot like her bite except even less of my bottom teeth are now visible. My top jaw needs to go back

[qwertz1]

I"m a little confused - if your incisors don't touch how can you properly bite something thin? When I had my underbite I couldn't bite through certain foods because they were smaller than the gap in my underjet. Wouldn't the same thing happen with thin foods in an overjet?

there can be an overjet and your incissors can touch at the same time, see for example here:


but according to my orthodontist, it is not necessary that they do touch when you bite into your molars.
has anyone else asked their orthodontist about this? just wanna make sure mine isnt just trying to save time.

[LAJaw]

Qwertz, thanks for the picture. I didn't realize you could have an overjet/underjet and also have a closed bite.