Orthodontic bracket felt inside the jaw during surgery

This forum is for discussions relating to oral surgery for orthodontics.

Moderator: bbsadmin

Post Reply
Message
Author
proton
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:22 pm

Orthodontic bracket felt inside the jaw during surgery

#1 Post by proton »

Hi,

I had a lower jaw surgery 2,5 years ago to correct an overbite, and since, have a constant strange feeling and occasional clicking when moving my lower jaw horizontally. I also have a very minor posterior openbite, and I noticed that during the treatment, when wearing elastics at night, I had a perfect bite and none of this clicking or feeling in the jaw. But when not wearing the elastics (and consequently at the end of the treatment), I have this minor posterior openbite and the clicking/stranger feeling in one side of my jaw.

At the completion of my orthodontic treatment, the orthodontist asked for X-Ray. I did the X-rays (profile, panoramic dental), and I discovered that, near a titanium plate, something strange was noticeable. I first thought that it was a screw that broke from the plate. It is located exactly where I have the strange feeling.

Went back to the orthodontist and he was extremely surprised, and said that it certainly was an orthodontic bracket that felt during the surgery. I was absolutely upset about my surgeon because I was complaining of a strange feeling and clicking in this precise side of my jaw, and he didn't said anything to me about the procedure, other than that everything went fine.

So I went to see another maxillo-facial surgeon in the same hospital were I had my surgery. He said that it was indeed an orthodontic bracket that felt during the surgery, and that it is now deep inside the bone (ramus). He also said that even though my surgeon noticed this during the surgery and on the X-Rays he didn't talked about it with me because it is a known risk of this surgery and a minor issue.

Also, he said that another surgery was not advisable to recover the orthodontic bracket because it is near the nerve and it is a risky area. Also, in his opinion, it would be absolutely not worth it to try to recover it.

He also believed that the feeling I have on this side of the jaw is more linked with the TMJ than with this.

I have a friend who knows an OMF surgeon so I asked this third surgeon for an advice about my issue and he said more or less the same thing.

For some reasons, I cannot go back to see the surgeon that did the procedure on me, but I assume that he would also said the same thing.

Due to a slight relapse of the front lower teeth (despite having a fixed retainer), and for aesthetic reasons, I am doing another short orthodontic treatment (less than 6 months), on 6 of my lower teeth.
For this treatment, I have small blue things on my lower molars to prevent my upper teeth to break the brackets of the lower teeths, so all of my teeth are in contact, and surprisingly, I don't have the jaw clicking anymore... but still the strange feeling when I am forcing on this particular side of the jaw, like if I was pushing on my jaw from inside of my mouth with a finger.


I must say that I am overall happy with the outcome of the treatment and surgery, because it aesthetically improved a lot my profile and my crooked teeth, but I am now left with a functional issue.

Do you think that my strange feeling is linked to this bracket inside my jaw or to the slight malocclusion I now have and if it's worth to ask my orthodontist for another round of elastic treatment to see if it help ?

Post Reply