My expander and SARPE questions

[rhaqqad]

Hey everyone,

I am 25 years old and got my braces on about 5 weeks ago. My Ortho wanted me to have SARPE but, I don't really have the extra cash for this surgery since I would be paying out of pocket. Instead he gave me a expander that I can take off. This is what it looks like

[IMG=http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/1350 ... 010005.jpg][/IMG]

Has anyone had this expander with any success? I have heard of people happy with results without SARPE with the expanders with the bands.

People who have had SARPE, have you noticed any facial feature changes? Nose, jaw, or smile and did you like the change?

I don't think my Crossbite is extreme, nor does my ortho. But I don't want to regret not habing the surgery later on when my teeth fall out!

Thanks for replies.

[LAJaw]

You might want to check out a thread on the surgery board dedicated to SARPE:

http://archwired.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=5144

It's been going on for years and has almost 100 pages of posts.

[crazybeautiful]

Non-surgical expansion can produce good results to an extent, but obviously if you need a large amount of movement this just isn't possible; you can't expand fused bone, really

E.g. I had SARME (same thing, just my preferred wording ) and expanded 10mm. Obviously this amount of expansion can't be created without surgery. Also the changes that come with SARME/non-surgical expansion will depend on how much you go on to expand by. My nostrils widened, and my smile/arch was obviously wider. The changes were positive for me, and my nostrils were very narrow to start with, so it's not like it makes your nose huge, just slightly wider than what it was. And often people won't be able to tell, than you and your ortho/surgeon.

So really it depends on how severity of your case. SARME will always be the optimum for actual expansion (rather than, say, just a 'tipping' of the teeth on a superficial level), however sometimes you can still achieve good results without it