Can braces widen your smile if you're an adult?

[Dana6]

Hi everyone! This is my first post. I'm 49 years old and I have put 4 of my 6 kids in braces. I wish I would have gotten braces for myself sooner but the kids were using up all of our money! I'm having my first evaluation appointment on Monday.

I had braces as a teenager but stopped wearing my retainer at 35(it broke) and I was shocked when my teeth have gradually almost returned to their original position. I think I have minor crowding on top and moderate on bottom, however, I have a very narrow pallet. This bothers me a lot. My kids all got pallet expanders but I hear that your pallet fuses when you are a young adult.

For those of you with narrower pallets, did you notice any widening in your smile once you were finished with your treatment? If I get braces, I think I would like to get the ceramic ones. If you did notice some widening, how did your orthodontist explain how that happens if your pallet is fused?

Thanks in advance for your help! I think your answers will halo me in making a decision on whether to do this!

[Anna5]

Hello Dana and welcome to the forum!

Yes, braces can widen your smile when you are an adult (by tipping the teeth out, or by putting tipped in teeth upright), so that your smile looks wider. But braces cannot expand your palate as an adult, because your palate is fused. However for extreme cases, there is a surgery (SARPE) to open the suture of your palate, so that expansion can still happen.
I also have a narrow palate and a bit of a crossbite (do you also have a crossbite: is your upper jaw smaller than your lower jaw?) and braces have definitely broadened my smile, but for the best results I would have needed surgery to expand my palate (which I declined,at least for now).
I wish you very good luck on your appointment on Monday!

Anna

[sirwired]

You'd think this would be a "settled" question. But really the answer is "it depends". There have been many studies showing that non-surgical palatal expansion in some adults is possible, especially with permanent retention. However, quite a lot of patients in those studies relapse (and some don't achieve expansion at all), and I don't think anybody has yet been able to "crack the code" to figure out which patients are which.

See what one or more orthodontists say... you may not need palatal expansion at all; your current arch may be able to accommodate your teeth; you are just going to have to ask.

[ALFuser]

Hi there,

I'm in my 30s, and have ALFs in at the moment. These are expanding my upper palate and my smile is now wider!

[Dana6]

Thanks everyone for the responses. Anna5, no I don't have a crossbite, at least I don't think so. My bite seems to have remained the same since my braces as a teenager, my teeth are just crowding inwards. I will post on Monday and let everyone know what my ortho says about getting a broader smile. Thanks again!

[Anna5]

That is great that you don't have a crossbite, that means you also wouldn't need surgery to correct this!
We are looking forward to what your ortho will say on Monday, good luck!

[fosterp]

I had a significant amount of expansion with just wires and rubberbands alone. I started with a unilateral crossbite so rubberbands tipped the teeth on that side, and the teeth on my upper arch in general all sort of tipped outward.

There is no actual expansion of the jaws but you gain some arch length simply by tipping the teeth outwards. This really depends on how your teeth are positioned now. You can achieve a lot of expansion if your teeth are currently tipping inwards. There is also probably some expansion of the teeth at the root level, but since the bone your teeth sit in aren't actually moving, there are anatomical limits to how far your roots can move out before the result is unstable.

Check my sig to see the kind of expansion I got.

[Dana6]

Wow fosterp! You transformation is amazing. I'm not sure what the 2 teeth on either side of your front teeth are called, but how did he make the one on the left side appear so much larger? Did he pull it down to make it longer?

[fosterp]

I'm not sure which tooth you are referring to specifically but I didn't have any bonding to make the teeth longer. All of the teeth had their edges manicured, and I had a little bit of IPR done in between a couple of the front teeth on both the top and bottom. The only significant changes in length were with the central incisors on top, they were shaved down a considerable amount, which might explain why the laterals look like they got relatively longer.

Also consider that the entire arch was leveled out horizontally - a TAD was used on the left side (left of the pictures) to intrude those teeth a bit. A side effect of that was the teeth sort of slanting in that direction - which is really hard to notice unless you look closely.

I'm back in brackets again to straighten that out.