Facial changes with braces (not that happy)

[zena]

i orchid,
You mentioned emailing a professor. and asking another ortho.plus your ortho said he will discuss your concern in your next appointment. I am anxiously waiting the results.

[Leeshlund]

I have heard of this from a lot of women!!! Mine is changed and I got my braces one day after you...I have a thin face though so for me I welcome the changes!! If it helps most of my friends all hated the changes at first but then grew to love it:-) my ortho calls it a facelift side affect lol!!! I bet once you're all finished up there's a chance you'll change your mind!! I like your new face shape and yes... I can tell give it time!!! We're stuck with these darn things for a while!!!:-)

[djspeece]

You look great! That's a very sophisticated/intelligent look, IMO.

[orchid]

i orchid,
You mentioned emailing a professor. and asking another ortho.plus your ortho said he will discuss your concern in your next appointment. I am anxiously waiting the results.

I've been in contact with my ortho, another ortho and a professor in orthodontology at a prestigeous university in my country. No, I cannot do anything in moderation

I'll post the info I got from them later tonight. On my phone right now!

[orchid]

So my ortho said he or his staff had never heard of it. When I went to him he was so busy that I didn't have the energy to talk to him about it. I'm also quite vulnerable about this and was afraid that I was going to break down into tears talking to him about it. My next appointment is April 13th and I will definately try to talk to him about it then. But for now, my ortho denies that this phenomen exists.

I emailed another ortho and said I was looking for another opinion. I asked him if he knew about this and if he could give me some thoughts about it. He said that these kind of changes are due to weight loss. But I haven't lost any weight. So this ortho too denies that this exists. He said that he'd never heard about it either.

So I emailed a professor in orthodontology at a university here in Scandinavia. His research is about patient's experiences with ortodontic treatment so I thought he would be great to ask about this. I said that I wasn't looking for any input about my particular case but that I wanted to read about this phenomenon. I asked him if there were any articles about this and just expressed that it was strange to me that this was happening. His answer was that normally, teeth move only within the jaws and that it's highly unlikely that traditional orthodontic treatment without jaw surgery could impact the face in the way I described. He also attributed similar changes to weight loss or medication, such as cortison which makes you put on weight and that this could affect tissues like muscles and stuff in the face. He also said there wasn't any literature on this. So yep. Pretty much nothing.

So I'm still clueless. Just today, a co-worker who I haven't met for a couple of months asked me what I had done with my face and if I had lost weight (but she also checked my body and saw that it all was still there). That made me very sad because I've been trying to convince myself that the changes aren't that noticeable, but my co-workers astounded reaction to my changing face made me really sad. My boyfriend sees the changes too and my sister too. It looks as though I've lost a significant amount of weight although I have not. I seem to have lost my fullness below my cheeks and my cheekbones look ridiculous. They are also kind of uneven, which adds to the comic effect.

Today I'm quite sad about it all. I wish someone could've told me about this so I could have made an informed decision. I look much older, and I'm only 27.

[kendall]

The professor has a sound logic - teeth move within the jawbone and can't change the bone structure. It's just almost impossible. Now, the way you look also depends on the soft tissues (basically muscles and fat). You say you haven't lost weight. I would venture a wild guess that as your teeth move and your bite is changing, you're using your jaw muscles differently and/or clenching your jaw.

Also, it's true what's been said about sensitivity towards appearance in braces wearers. Sometimes it's useful to talk to a psychologist/psychotherapist to get some help in getting more relaxed about the issue.

[mmkay]

Weight loss does not come off the body evenly and varies according to each person. For example, in order to have "six pack abs" many guys will end up looking like a concentration camp survivor because their face gets very thin first before abdominal fat disappears to the extent required.

Similarly, in trying to reduce their arse size, women can end up with a thin face before their arse gets small.

You have wide cheekbones. I have them too, and they appear to be asymmetrical. They look more prominent with minor weight loss - I know this from my own recent experience. But they have always been there.

I suspect that in some cases braces could affect how prominent they look e.g. in my case facial height will be reduced and lower jaw moved slightly forward as my open bite is closed, but that's a long process.

[twentyseven]

The professor has a sound logic - teeth move within the jawbone and can't change the bone structure. It's just almost impossible. Now, the way you look also depends on the soft tissues (basically muscles and fat). You say you haven't lost weight. I would venture a wild guess that as your teeth move and your bite is changing, you're using your jaw muscles differently and/or clenching your jaw.

Also, it's true what's been said about sensitivity towards appearance in braces wearers. Sometimes it's useful to talk to a psychologist/psychotherapist to get some help in getting more relaxed about the issue.

This. Exactly what I was thinking. Last Friday I got composite buildups on my molars + elastics to wear. And I noticed the same day that my cheekbones and temporal bones are somehow much more visible than before - then I felt how much clenched my jaws were - probably why these facial features suddenly became more prominent. So I think that this statement really makes sense

[wishbone83]

Just got 4 premolars extracted, hoping for the best!

[rhibee83]

I am sorry that you are still unhappy with your facial changes

I have heard of people who have had orthodontic work while they were younger (especially removal of teeth) sometimes have complications as they are older. One night i was at an engagment party and i had just got my braces and I was very self concious. There was another girl there who had braces so i decided to go and talk to her about them and make friends. She mentioned she was in braces for the second time as the first time she had them on it changed her whole face shape and she was not happy. She had teeth removed when she was younger and as her jaw was not fully grown at the time, this proved to be a bad move by the ortho and now she is in braces to move the teeth forward so that they are not pushed so far back.

When i got my teeth out, I asked my ortho if my face would change as i have read about this alot and it worried the heck out of me... he said that he will ensure my teeth are only moved back as far as I want them to be moved back, as i didnt want them moved back to far (i had an overjet). He has only moved them back as far as i wanted them to go and this has not really made that bad facial changes. I admit, my face has changed, but for the better people say, it is slimmer, and i do look like i have lost weight in the face, but as i said in my previous post they said it looks better as they didnt realise how chubby my face actually was until i had the teeth out and braces on and now it looks better.

My ortho also didn't really speak much about the whole facial change topic and just kinda rolled his eyes like alot of people must mention it to him. I insisted i didnt want my teeth moved to far back and he agreed so that was ok.

I am not sure what your next step could be? maybe get another orthodontist opinion by actually visiting another one? or maybe even a dentists opinion?

Maybe you could ask your ortho to start moving your teeth forward more rather than back ? just to give it some fullness?

i am so sorry you have gone through all this and i really hope it gets better, maybe as your treatment progresses your face will change again?

fingers crossed for you hun.

[almighty061582]

I completely agree with you. I am 32... I got braces on two years ago. I've been having other issues with my braces similar to allergic reactions. But I noticed today when I pulled out my pre brace pictures I look astoundingly different. It's weird I haven't felt like myself in such a long time. I looked at that picture and it all came rushing back to me. If you figure any of this out please let us know. I am contacting an orthodontist after the weekend to find out if any of this can be reversed. I am terrified at the moment.

[almighty061582]

I would love to post a picture here of how drastic my changes were... doesn't seem that I can though.

There we go

[rhibee83]

hi almighty

In all your pics your face looks the same to me, i don't see any sunkenness or anything

[4foot10]

I feel your pain on this. So many people at work have been saying I look drastically different. I asked my ortho about this same thing a few months ago and he told me the same thing, that it is really not possible. I dunno, but I notice the difference in myself too.

[binx]

I don't think that you look vastly different (or at all "bad!") -- but slightly different can feel weird when you're used to what you see in the mirror.