Braces Off - The Good and the Bad

[Uptown Girl]

Hi Brattie67,
This may not be the shortest way but it worked for me.
1. Go to the Photobucket.com website and join, choosing a user name and password.
2. Once logged in you can drag a photo from your desktop or computer photo album to the Photobucket album ( the instructions for uploading are on the Photobucket website).
3. You can reduce the size of your photo and crop it on Photobucket ( so you can remove your nose etc).
4. To get it onto the forum you will see four options at the side of your saved picture. The bottom one is IMG and starts with [URL=http....
5. Click on the bottom rectangle and it will copy the code or give you the option to do so.
6. Now go to your post on the Metal Mouth Forum and paste in the copied code. Preview it first to see if it works.
Hope that is clear. I already joined Photobucket as I posted some pictures on another forum a couple of years ago but I had to think hard to remember what to do.

[Brattie67]

Awesome, thanks! I will do that once I break out my computer.


Have you posted any pictures on here?


Hope you had a good weekend!

[Uptown Girl]

Yes, see Braces at 63. Truly scary pics, for me anyway. I'm used to keeping my mouth shut.

[Liblib2]

Any updates?

[LittleSern]

I've also experienced these changes as well. I have been in my braces for 10 months and started noticing the changes around 3 or 4 months. I have damon braces on (with bumpers on the back molars) and am wearing class II elastics. I have not had any extractions.

I really didn't need this to happen because I already have a thin angular face. I'm 28 and this has really aged me. I have had two different people tell me my face looks different. The first one said "you look disturbingly thin" (not sure why a friend would say that to me..thanks friend...), and the second one just said "you look different. It seems like your cheekbones protrude more". So.. I've been obsessing over this lately. If I knew that this would happen I wouldn't have gotten braces in the first place. It also seems so strange to me that SO many people experience this and orthodontists don't seem to know much about it.

The most logical explanation to me is that the muscles in the face are being used differently than they were before. Our face shape is not just determined by bone, but also the overlaying muscle and fat. It stands to reason that if the position of the teeth are changed, the way those muscles are used is going to change as well. I'm not sure if it's under or overuse that's causing this. When I clench my jaw, I can definitely feel the jaw muscle flexing (under cheekbones) and I also feel movement in temple area.

It seems to me that this is happening to people soon after they get bumpers or turbos put on, or anything that changes their bite, which makes sense because your muscles are not being used in the same way as before at that point. I'm just hoping that it will go back after the braces come off. I'm going to talk to my ortho about it at my next visit.

[djspeece]

I think you are onto something with the use of different muscles, and disuse of others, contributing to your facial changes. It's been commented on here before, I think by Itsfreyja, and it makes sense to me considering the rather limited impact that braces have on skeletal structures. Obviously any atrophy of the masseter is going to make your face look thinner. I wonder if it would be of any benefit to exercise the masseter by putting something soft between your upper and lower teeth on both sides and clenching and releasing. I would not do that before discussing with your ortho, however. Looking back, I recall that some of my colleagues commented on my improving physique and loss of a few pounds which I attributed to running and weight lifting, along with a reduction in snacking. However, I think part of the looks was due to atrophy of some of the muscles of mastication (say that three times fast). Now that the braces are off, things seem back to normal (less running, still snacking, and so forth ).

[emiii]

Has anybody found that their face returns to normal after they have had their braces off for a while? I have just started to read about this and
it scares me

[kribbo]

Hi all, I've had my braces off for 9 months and unfortunately my face is the same. I still have sunken lower cheeks and temples, pronounced nasolabial lines and large eye bags. It's really aged me and affected my confidence. I've considered fillers but am worried about the potential risks. I very much regret braces, my teeth look worse - they are too flared forward and my lower lip bulges out when I smile. I feel like an idiot for spending so much time, money and anxiety on something that has ruined my face.

Sorry, not a positive post. I hope anyone suffering in a similar way finds a solution - hugs and solidarity!

[oldfart]

If your teeth were not to your liking, why did you let the Ortho take them off?

[kribbo]

If your teeth were not to your liking, why did you let the Ortho take them off?

I couldn't tell how flared they were, I thought my lip was still bulging out because of the brackets. I found it very difficult to judge what they were going to look like once the brackets were removed. Also, I didn't have a choice - I had the Six Month Smiles treatment and I was already the dentist's longest-running patient at 16 months so he was deperate for them to come off (sadly he wasn't an ortho). I asked if the teeth could be brought in more at the front as I did suspect they were too far forward but he said it was impossible.

Essentially I made the wrong decision going down the Six Month Smiles route. He admitted after treatment that an ortho would've extracted teeth to make room rather just rounding out and flaring forward. That information wasn't very useful at that stage...

[katinho]

I'm so sorry you're going through this After palate expansion did you notice changes to facial shape or is this all only from braces? I hear braces, since they are technically pushing back and in, can narrow the palate which could result in face lengthening etc. Though it would be expensive and a pain maybe you may need palate expansion again? Only if you didn't have negative effects first time and you and your ortho consider it right!
Hope I helped and that you're feeling okay Good luck!

[Linnna]

[quote="AlexJones"]I find I look much better, but can you post a before and after pic of yourself?[/quote]
Hi , did your face go back to normal ? I'm going trough the same problems I put in my braces may 1st and I hate my face I'm debating I should take it off , I really hate my face change with temples sunked In and all .

[LittleSern]

Hi all,

Just posting an update - I had posted on this thread earlier explaining I had the same problem. Well, my braces have been off for almost 4 months and I'm sorry to say my face has not gone back to normal. My temples and area under my cheekbones still look sunken and I feel that my face looks way older than it did before braces. I do not think this is due to just aging 2 years, since the change was fairly rapid after the braces were put on.

I will say that things looked worse at some point during treatment, and I definitely look better than I did while I had my braces on. But...after all is said and done, I think I look worse than before braces due to the undesirable changes to my face. My face looks gaunt and it looks like I have a loss of volume under my cheekbones, causing the skin along my jaw line to kind of sag a little bit. I'm not happy. I've started to do facial exercises to see if they will help (look up Faceaerobics on youtube).

[maryedenissa]

I noticed my temples were sunken after a month of brace. I totally panicked, so I tried assessing what i could have done or the braces could have done. then i start noticing that it was probably the way on how i eat and chew. Now, at almost 8th month of braces, my temples got better, though they still a bit sunken, but I wont stop chewing properly even when there is pain every adjustment.

[Ploppy]

Was anyone able to find out how it actually came out that way after getting braces?