Re: Appearance Change with Braces?

[Guest guest]

YES!

I now get asked if my children are my siblings,

ah a nice side effect of being able to say no I am not 16

try pushing thirty..

My friend is a teacher one of her grade nine students tried to pick

me up with the line " hey cutie what gradeschool did you come from! "

.....class of 1988 baby.

Shiloh

> I was wondering if anyone has noticed that their looks have

changed,

> for the better or for the worse, after they got their braces on.

It

> seems like I look different than I did before I had braces on, but

> I'm wondering if it's just in my head. Anyone want to weigh on

this

> one? Thanks.

[Guest guest]

Yes, my looks changed. I had removeable appliances before the fixed

braces, which widened my upper palate. The braces continued to widen

the arches. When I was ready for surgery, I had less of a " sunken "

look to my cheeks. My family also seemed to think that my chin became

more pronounced.

My ortho also did some work with elastics - he said my upper jaw was

turned to the right, and my lower to the left. He corrected that

almost completely - the surgeon did have to move the upper jaw 2 mm

to the left. The cant of my upper jaw was not horizontal (I could put

a tongue depressor between my teeth, and see the crooked angle), and

my ortho corrected that as well, with a bite splint and elastics, so

that the surgeon did not have to correct this.

I also had some cranial structural/sacral therapy throughout, and

this achieved some skeletal changes such as levelling my eyes,

shoulders and hips, and corrected postural problems with my head and

neck, all physical compensations my body had made for my jaw

deformities. Now post-op, my therapist is working on helping my body

adapt to the new changes.

I took pictures (and measurements with a vernier) throughout my

treatment, at just about every ortho visit, and it's interesting to

look back and see the changes. I'd recommend it!

[Guest guest]

hi

I have had my bace for 8 long months now and I would say that definatly my

facial looks have changed. My chin it alot more perdominant and although i know

i going to be corrected in a few months its hard to come to terms with. But my

ortho did say 'You'll look worse before you look better'.

i dont know whether thats any help?

sarah

x

awquinn33 <no_reply > wrote:I was wondering if anyone has

noticed that their looks have changed,

for the better or for the worse, after they got their braces on. It

seems like I look different than I did before I had braces on, but

I'm wondering if it's just in my head. Anyone want to weigh on this

one? Thanks.

[Guest guest]

hi

I have had my bace for 8 long months now and I would say that definatly my

facial looks have changed. My chin it alot more perdominant and although i know

i going to be corrected in a few months its hard to come to terms with. But my

ortho did say 'You'll look worse before you look better'.

i dont know whether thats any help?

sarah

x

awquinn33 <no_reply > wrote:I was wondering if anyone has

noticed that their looks have changed,

for the better or for the worse, after they got their braces on. It

seems like I look different than I did before I had braces on, but

I'm wondering if it's just in my head. Anyone want to weigh on this

one? Thanks.

[Guest guest]

yup im with you there .

Keep focusing on the future. You wont be like this forever and i

wont either. You are doing something about what you are unhappy

about.your not like this forever . there is an end in sight. dont

let it get you down. think postive...and if you cant...rant and rave

on here a while...it helps

take care

Allie xx

I was wondering if anyone has

noticed that their looks have changed,

> for the better or for the worse, after they got their braces on.

It

> seems like I look different than I did before I had braces on, but

> I'm wondering if it's just in my head. Anyone want to weigh on

this

> one? Thanks.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

My wife and I both noticed a change after a couple of months. I am

going to be having upper and lower surgery (upper out, lower in)

sometime next year and got my braces on in May of this year. I had

no cheeks and we can see a noticeable difference.

> I was wondering if anyone has noticed that their looks have

changed,

> for the better or for the worse, after they got their braces on.

It

> seems like I look different than I did before I had braces on, but

> I'm wondering if it's just in my head. Anyone want to weigh on

this

> one? Thanks.

[Guest guest]

Where did u have ur cranial structural/sacral therapy ? What do they

do actually ? What department is that ?

I need a therapist to correct my postural position too. It was due to

my jaw deformity that affected my posture.

> Yes, my looks changed. I had removeable appliances before the fixed

> braces, which widened my upper palate. The braces continued to

widen

> the arches. When I was ready for surgery, I had less of a " sunken "

> look to my cheeks. My family also seemed to think that my chin

became

> more pronounced.

>

> My ortho also did some work with elastics - he said my upper jaw

was

> turned to the right, and my lower to the left. He corrected that

> almost completely - the surgeon did have to move the upper jaw 2 mm

> to the left. The cant of my upper jaw was not horizontal (I could

put

> a tongue depressor between my teeth, and see the crooked angle),

and

> my ortho corrected that as well, with a bite splint and elastics,

so

> that the surgeon did not have to correct this.

>

> I also had some cranial structural/sacral therapy throughout, and

> this achieved some skeletal changes such as levelling my eyes,

> shoulders and hips, and corrected postural problems with my head

and

> neck, all physical compensations my body had made for my jaw

> deformities. Now post-op, my therapist is working on helping my

body

> adapt to the new changes.

>

> I took pictures (and measurements with a vernier) throughout my

> treatment, at just about every ortho visit, and it's interesting to

> look back and see the changes. I'd recommend it!

>

>

[Guest guest]

At my ortho's office, as part of my original treatment (6 cranial

treatments, but I continued with them). He has a registered massage

therapist who works there two days a week - she has trained in

cranial structural/sacral techniques. Between them, they have worked

out a " protocol " that they use for treatment in conjunction with the

ALF appliances.

Cranial therapy uses very light touch to manipulate the bones of the

face and skull. Many people believe that the skull & facial sutures

are fused, but they aren't, and can be gently manipulated. It's done

while you are lying on your back on a treatment table. One of the

first bones that she worked on was my palatine bone, which is way up

high in the back of the mouth. Very rarely she works inside the

mouth. In a few weeks, when I can open more, she will go inside to

work on the facial bones from there.

I had two compressed vertebrae at the top of my neck, and she often

uses traction to try to release these. My chiropractor does a similar

adjustment by stretching my neck out. You may find that you could get

help from a chiropractor.

Hope that helps. I think there's info on the geocities website about

cranial-sacral therapy at http://www.geocities.com/orthognathicinfo/

> Where did u have ur cranial structural/sacral therapy ? What do

they

> do actually ? What department is that ?

> I need a therapist to correct my postural position too. It was due

to

> my jaw deformity that affected my posture.

[Guest guest]

Yeah, I've always wondered whether my jaw issues caused my posture

problems or my posture problems caused my jaw issues. I lean toward

the latter, honestly.

For anyone with general posture problems, I would highly recommend

looking into The Egoscue Method. You can find information on this at

www.egoscue.com. TMJ is one of the things this system can help.

Personally, I've never been diligent enough to realize the best

possible results from the system (it does take a time commitment, but

what doesn't) because I have such a busy schedule. It's a poor

excuse, but I use it. ;-)

Both my wife and my father have been through the system and stuck

with it and the results in their skeletal structures have been

nothing short of amazing. My dad had all kinds of problems (feet,

ankles, knees, elbow, shoulder, back, neck) from many years of

gymnastics and bad posture and he is completely healed on all

fronts. My wife had shoulder surgery to decompress a nerve and the

surgery actually made her worse and the doctors were at a loss in

terms of what to do medically for her. She was pretty much

devastated by their lack of hope that they could do anything further

for her and she was in an enormous amount of pain in the shoulder and

moderate pain throughout the rest of her body due to overall bad

posture. She is now completely healed on all fronts and shouldn't

have even done the surgery in hindsight.

This method really works. I know I should really stick with it and

see what it does to help my TMJ (not that it would be a replacement

for the surgery I have scheduled for next year, but everything helps).

Pete Egoscue, the founder of the method, is nothing short of a

genius, and his method has an exceptionally strong basis to it. He

has a couple of terrific books available as well. You can get them

on Amazon for about 10 bucks. These are not substitutes for a

personalized treatment plan through his clinic, but they do provide a

tremendous amount of information on why we hurt and the fact that we

don't have to hurt if we take steps to align ourselves skeletally.

Hope this helps some.

> > Yes, my looks changed. I had removeable appliances before the

fixed

> > braces, which widened my upper palate. The braces continued to

> widen

> > the arches. When I was ready for surgery, I had less of

a " sunken "

> > look to my cheeks. My family also seemed to think that my chin

> became

> > more pronounced.

> >

> > My ortho also did some work with elastics - he said my upper jaw

> was

> > turned to the right, and my lower to the left. He corrected that

> > almost completely - the surgeon did have to move the upper jaw 2

mm

> > to the left. The cant of my upper jaw was not horizontal (I could

> put

> > a tongue depressor between my teeth, and see the crooked angle),

> and

> > my ortho corrected that as well, with a bite splint and elastics,

> so

> > that the surgeon did not have to correct this.

> >

> > I also had some cranial structural/sacral therapy throughout, and

> > this achieved some skeletal changes such as levelling my eyes,

> > shoulders and hips, and corrected postural problems with my head

> and

> > neck, all physical compensations my body had made for my jaw

> > deformities. Now post-op, my therapist is working on helping my

> body

> > adapt to the new changes.

> >

> > I took pictures (and measurements with a vernier) throughout my

> > treatment, at just about every ortho visit, and it's interesting

to

> > look back and see the changes. I'd recommend it!

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I checked out that site and it's interesting. Some of the comments on

Amazon suggest that you need about 3 hours a day to do two or three

of the exercises, though, and I could never make that kind of

commitment unless someone were paying me to be off work. Still, it's

good to know about the various alternative therapies out there, and

that it's helped others with serious problems.

I disagree about the posture causing the jaw issues, though. Mine was

there from birth, and my whole body compensated with postural and

skeletal changes. That's 46 years of physical compensation to undo,

and of course it's still taking time post-op. Plus we now have to

deal with the new structural/muscular changes as a result of the

surgery.

I am having therapy consisting of cranial structural, cranial-sacral,

massage and chiropractic treatment, plus yoga practice (great for

stretches). I started these pre-op and continued post-op. My cranial

therapist and chiropractor both said that things did change as a

result of the surgery, and we're working to get me back to an optimal

state. The combination of treatments are very complementary, and have

achieved more than any one treatment type on its own.

Thanks for the info, . All of this type of info helps increase

awareness of things we can do to help our recovery and improve our

quality of life.