Intentional teeth flaring to provide lip support?

[diamond63]

Has anyone had any experience with this? I was supposed to get my braces off last week but told my ortho I was unhappy with the amount of flaring of my upper front teeth. This has been a constant disagreement between my ortho and I all along as you can see in one of my older posts.

The problem is I have naturally a very thin upper lip, and the ortho is trying to give me as much lip support as he can to fill out my lip and make my face more full. My original smile was what he calls a "flat profile" (haven't worked out whether that means ideal or too flat).. congenitally missing my 2 upper laterals, and my two upper central incisors were not long enough & were completely vertical, no extrusion/protrusion angle on them whatsoever. Just straight down.

I appreciate that he is thinking about facial esthetics, and in fact I definitely think the flare helps there. I had him tilt them back a bit and in 2 days the left one already moved back TOO much I think, and I can definitely see the loss of support negatively affecting my facial aesthetics.

With the upper incisors flared out slightly, my facial aesthetics are better and I even like my upper incisors better from the front. From the front you can't see the tilt, they catch the light better and appear more dominant. It's the tilt I see from the profile/side view that I dislike and perceive as a bit goofy looking. I am also worried that my lower lip will go under my (flared) upper teeth when I smile. And I know with them flared out to the max I had a bit of a lisp.

I feel like I have to choose between better facial aesthetics, fuller lips, and a better frontal teeth appearance, at the expense of a somewhat flared look from the profile view and top down view (where you can also see the flaring).

My cosmetic dentist, ortho, oral surgeon, and every dental assistant I've seen all tell me the flaring isn't a big deal and is needed for the lip support. I want the lip support and don't want my teeth to be straight up/down like my original smile, but I dont want them looking goofy either.

To make matters more complicated, I know things will look different when I get the brackets off and get my implant crowns (screws are there but don't have my temporary crowns yet - just pontics attached to archwire filling in space and an essix retainer w/fakes when braces come off). It's hard to envision the final look.

Anyone had any experience with this teeth flaring business and lip support? I'm just so torn.

[sirwired]

Assuming you trust your dental team, I'd go along with their opinion... really, some of the "defects" in our smiles are not, in fact, actually noticeable to random people at a casual glance. WE spot them because it's our mouths, but it's simply not apparent to others unless it's pointed out.

You may be SOL if you planned on a future career as a model for brochures for dental products, but I don't think that'll be too limiting. (And take a look at the smiles of celebrities some time; a LOT have had extractions, MANY have crooked teeth, etc. But nobody really notices any of this without specifically looking for it.)

[Bronwyn]

I am interested in this topic too. I have lost lip support with the retraction that has taken place with my top teeth. I am going to ask my ortho to slightly flare out my top teeth now to see if this will help bring back some lip support. Would like to know if anyone has had success with this.

[Vasil12]

I'm going through the exact same thing with my ortho! No kidding! Please update me on what happened?