I am 25 years old male and my face changed dramatically in last two years: it became long, restless, tired looking, my-eye balls slightly bulge out of head, I developed exaggerated nasolabial folds and under eye circles, scleral show increased, nose may lengthened but it definitely became more pronounced on face, one eye-ball sunken vertically (down), head tilted forward, posture worsened, for some reason my face appears even more pale, whole face seem to sunk under the eye ridge...in short, just a bunch of signs which indicate vertical growth pattern. The same thing is happening to my sister and happened to my father, so it is either bad genes, syndromic (was already appointed to geneticist by maxillo facial surgeon to check out the situation) or due to airway problems (asthma, allergies, narrow nasal airways). IMPORTANT: No 4-teeth extraction was done ever.
clinical diagnosis I've gathered from multiple orthodontists and maxillo facial surgeon so far: midface deficiency, face asymmetry (mandible about 4mm shifted in left-right direction based on quick evaluation, actual measurements yet to come), vertical growth of face, maxillary and mandibular rotation, mandible recession, long face, teeth overcrowding, narrow upper palate and slight narrow down palate, malocclusion (type I on one side, type II other), was also recommended to visit geneticist (due to slight ear deformity, small ears, low set ears and midface deficiency)
Here are pics of my face changing during early 20's years (dropbox link to lateral, front and images taken from angle):
[link removed]
and here is a link to full directory, if someone can read xrays and would like to see them:
[link removed]
To hopefully improve my face or at least to stop this not-well-understood or better said unknown condition from worsening, I could use invasive methods (orthognatic surgery), but it's success based on seen results is questionable and potentially dangerous - the method that I was officially recommended by maxillo facial surgeon to undergo for my core problem (mid face defficiency) is LeFortIII, so no thanks to that. Also, I don't like the whole idea about surgery because I see it as imposed approach and what I'd want to have is a progressive method which slowly reshapes the form of a whole facial bones trough time and not just moving some segments of bones without effecting others.
In search of solution, a lot of googling and doing homework gave me these options:
1. Orthodontics to expand very narrow upper palate and align teeth
2. Face pulling with head gear
3. "Mike Mew routine" (teeth,lips together and tong on roof of mouth at rest state and keep pushing tong forward and up when possible)
4. NCR
Where things get frustrating for me is point 1 and point 2, because there seems to be a lot of appliances available and the opinions about appliances are very mixed, but the most problematic thing is that I simply can not find any community which is devoted to cranio-facial remodelling so that I'd be able to get more and less biased opinions. When I asked orthos about appliances, of course, the one they use is the best and everything else is out of question, so a level of bias is unpromising.
I talked with persons like dr Hang, dr Mitani, the guy behind CP, the TMJ (hockey-helmet) guy, the patient zero and others, the responses were in style
"I recommend biobloc"
"You shouldn't use biobloc, you're to old of that"
"Use Damon and face pull"
"Don't use Damon since it's too dental-oriented, instead cranial"
"The Crane is not good"
"Use ALF + The Crane"
"Face pull for 15-30 mins only"
"Face pull as much as possible"
...
After getting all that mixed feedback, things got a bit confusing and frustrating so at this moment I feel like I am where I started.
So far I came up with these appliances:
-biobloc appliances used by Mike Mew, probably an expander and maybe some "magical" accompanying appliances. Can't dig any info about this.
- ALF - seems to be very interesting device, because it is advertised as appliance which works on skeletal (3D) approach, rather just dental and this is exactly what I think that I need
- FaceMax - looks like a retainer built from plastic for a use with face pulling, but a but odd thing is that one should not wear it more than 30mins per day
-Maxvector appliance - probably face pulling appliance + helmet
- Damon - popular teeth straightening system, but I guess that is about it - just teeth strengthening, no expansion, no 3D effect
-Homeoblock - an appliance which is advertised to work skeletally (whole face, 3D), but I don't like the idea that it's only worn at night and it has no space for tong
- The crane - face pulling device, but this one seem to be mounted around neck rather on head
There are a lot of others too, but these seem to be most common choice.
Please share your opinion on appliance choices, treatment plan design, etc.
Thank you
p.s. please tolerate my English skills, it's not my native language