27M here. I’ve had some serious downgrowth it looks like with the elongated face and steep mandibular plane that comes with it.
Weirdly enough, despite the vertical growth, the roof of my mouth comfortably fits my tongue and all four of my wisdom teeth have erupted with no issues, which implies that I must have had proper tongue posture growing up, right?
When I was a teenager, I had braces and elastics treatment for a mild open bite caused by tongue thrust. Besides that and some gaps in my top front teeth, my teeth/bite were mostly okay… but I just don’t understand why my face is so vertical and downwardly grown.
If I indeed had proper tongue posture to expand my jaw and guide forward growth as I developed, shouldn’t my face be more compact and upwardly grown than it is? And shouldn’t my mandible be more horizontal and not so steep?
Did you get permanent retainers after your braces and do you still have them?
My tip: you need rotation of your mandible, for that, thumbpulling is excellent. You gotta do it intensely 2-4x a day each ~3 minutes every day for a few months.
Sit on a chair and put your elbows on a table and pressure your head down too when doing it. Use all your strength. After a few days you’ll see your palate will become loose and is more movable. Then just continue and continue. After a few weeks you’ll already see results but don’t drop down, keep going until you’re satisfied 👍
I had a clear removable retainer that I was instructed to wear nightly. I lost it a few years ago and have never gone back to my orthodontist to get a new one made. I’ve had only very mild teeth shifting since then, some barely noticeable crowding in the lower arch due to wisdom teeth eruption. So are you basically saying it looks like I need ccw rotation of the mandible (and therefore the maxilla too)? If so, in addition to thumb pulling, could hard chewing (gum or by introducing tougher foods) help induce rotation/upswing of my jaw structure? I forgot to mention that I grew up on a very soft diet and have very weak jaw muscles while I suspect might be partly to blame for the downswing in my face.
It’s very good that you don’t have the retainer anymore. It would limit you out.
Yes you have to thumbpull (push upwards) you also push outwards if you want a wider palate.
About chewing: idk if will move your bones, i always had strong jaw muscles but some imbalances so I know very how to work out on them very well:
1) warm up your jaw with an intense massage and your temporalis muscle too for like 2-3mins
So if I have a permanent retainers, It’s better to remove them?
Yes as I know they’ll block your progress. You can wear it for some time like a few months but not for many years. It’ll block movement
Even if it’s on the lower teeth, not the uppers?
As I know wearing it for Lower teeth = your chin/mandible movement is blocked / limited But Iam no doctor
Bro, wouldn’t doing the Oscar Patel method have the same effect? If I remember correctly, he says to do 2–3 sets of 30 seconds, like 5–8 times a day?
How can you tell that he needs rotation of the mandible?
It’s very steep which is unnatural. I’m very skinny with minimal body fat so my facial structure is pretty unobscured here… I think in the first photo especially you can see that my maxilla rotated downward and inward during my development which then forced my mandible to follow suit and also grow downward and take a steep angle because the lower jaw is limited by the position of the upper jaw.
At what angle degree should the mandible be optimally?
Have you seen progress with that?
Yes. My mandible did rotate and I got slightly forwardgrowth. And I was only consistent for like 8 weeks You should do it more :)
Did you have a narrow palate previously? I have a narrow palate and I really wanna expand it without MARPE my whole face is collapsed
I didn’t pull outwards. Iam getting marpe right now. My palate is 40mm, consider it narrow. I’ll expand by probably 8-9mm
I have a face similar to yours
Do you have any airway issues (sleep apnea or allergies)?
Did you have braces and if so do you remember what your bite issue was?
I don't think I have but, I snore at night a lot, I don't have braces and my bite feels normal but my lower teeth are crooked. My sleep quality may be a bit poor because I never actively gave attention to it, but I feel tired evb after sleeping a lot.
I do and my face is even worse. Please tell me if you find any viable method, I'm quite skeptical of the thumbpulling stuff.
Do you find it difficult to fit your tongue on the roof of your mouth and can't breath if your tongues back third is up?
I’m skeptical of the thumbpulling method as well.
I don’t find it difficult to fit my tongue in my palate, I should have posted pictures of my palate because it does appear to be U-shaped. I can lift the back third of my tongue and breathe just fine. I have some forward head posture from playing video games and working on programming assignments but even if I chin tuck (which pushes the jaw backwards into the neck) to straighten my posture, I still have no issues breathing.
If I find any viable fix outside of surgery, I’ll come back to this thread and let you know. For now, I’m just going to focus on proper tongue posture and chewing harder foods. I grew up on a very soft diet and soft carbs (no vegetables, hated tough, chewy meat) so I definitely have underdeveloped jaw muscles and I’ve read that strong muscles of mastication and forceful chewing are necessary for forward/upward jaw development. I can’t even recall ever seeing a person with strong jaw muscles have a recessed jaw, so I think good muscles of mastication and proper jaw growth go hand in hand.
I have a personal theory that chewing especially might help me see facial improvements (over a long period of time of course, given that I’m 27) but only I can test this and see if I have any upswing.
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No
So at my age consulting a maxillofacial surgeon would probably be the only option?
CCW rotation is the only way via bimax