Metal Mouth Message Board

Hey everyone I am in the market for braces and I am wondering since I am going to be fixing my teeth, I am not really happy with the way my jaw is shaped. My face is kind of narrow and I have an overbite and crossbite, and I am wondering if braces alone will provide any sort of improvement to my jawline and shape of face.

Of the two orthos I have talked to, neither of them recommended lower jaw surgery to correct the overbite, I guess in my case it is not that extreme and will be fixed by braces alone, though one did suggest upper jaw surgery to widen the jaw to fix the crossbite - but the other did not think that was needed.

From what I have read once you are an adult you can't really change the shape of your jaw without surgery but I guess I am not asking about any sort of extreme changes, just a subtle couple mm's here or there.

Did any of you with braces note any improvement to your shape or profile after your treatment? I am asking those of you who had treatment without surgery - since obviously with surgery there will be big changes lol.

i think they improved mine a little but it wasn't drastic. It all depends on where your teeth start and where thy end up.

I'd be interested to know too. I was actually going to create a post about this very thing. I was wanted to find out if people noticed that their faces had changed (other than the teeth being straight) for better or worse.

I can't stop thinking about it when I look in the mirror. I haven't seen any change yet (I realise it's been on 6 days) but wonder how different my face will be. I get nervous that it might mess me up in someway.

I'm probably being a worry wart.

I think my teeth have become less horse-like. It seems like, even with braces, my mouth is less prominent which is good.
My face does look a bit thinner but I think this is the effect of the braces and it may change when my braces come off.
In any case, nothing could be worse than how my teeth looked before!

I was told I would need jaw surgury on my lower jaw because my jaw was really off center but I refused. My ortho understood and now 19 months later my jaw is barely off. It was really noticable before and now you can't even tell because it's almost perfect. I think as long as your okay with it not being perfect and follow instuctions on everything it might surprise you how much of a difference just the braces can make. The whole bottom of my face changed. My mouth is a lot wider and looks normal now (the top was very narrow before). I'm actually happy I didn't have the surgury because I love my teeth now, I think they are perfect for me.

From my progress so far and from seeing other people wearing braces and taking them off, I assume that the changes are positive and that the face tends to become more symmetrical and even once the bite starts to be more correct. I actually had comments from people telling me that my face "has straightened out", even though they would not call it uneven before, now it seems to have found its "correct position".

My lower arch has been widened by my braces and I can tell when I look in the mirror, but the only other person who can see it is my hair dresser. No one else has noticed. My face is narrow, so I'm quite pleased to see my chin/jaw looking wider. I didn't realize how badly my lower teeth on the right side were collapsed in when I decided to get braces. My teeth were far worse than I thought, and now they are well on their way to being BEAUTIFUL!!!!

thanks everyone for the replies

it has made me look forward to getting braces even more

I have had some profile changes but I had 4 extractions. I am thrilled with the changes that I have seen! I am definitely glad that I got my braces.

I think my mouth looks bigger as in wider. I don't know if that's possible, but it does. I had a really small mouth to begin with though.

I'm not sure if anything else looks different, that's like the only thing I noticed.

I noticed a profile change, and it was definitely for the better. I also had an overbite (my upper central incisors completely covered my lower centrals partially due to a pretty ugly bottom arch) and everything was corrected with braces, bite planes (the simple bonding material placed on two molars, no additional appliances) and elastics. No surgery needed, and my profile looks SO much better! I wish I had pics to share, but my ortho changed computer systems about six months ago, so I don't have access to my "before" profile.