Posted by: YOLO
« on: June 29, 2014, 02:30:04 am »
Hi All
I am interested in face pulling to bring my maxilla forward, but instead of upwards, i think downwards might be better for me. I would like your input on this.
In jaw surgery, often a surgeon will do both a forward and downward movement of the maxilla. So i'm assuming that downward movement of the maxilla can't be always a bad idea and there are some people that need it. However, I feel confused about this one because I read Dr Mew's writing about the maxillary movement; namely he associates maxilla growing downward with backward(which is bad) and maxilla growing forward with upward (which is good). But what if you have a short maxilla? Shouldn't it grow forward and downward instead of forward and upward?
Here is my case history:
Many years ago as a teen, i had my bicuspids removed by a dentist. In my 20s, I had the ALF orthodontics and osteopathic treatments (it was about a year or a little bit less since I had to move). I definitely saw some good changes. My cheekbones risen, and regarding my maxilla (or was it my premaxilla)...i felt that it did come forward, as in i noticed lip area filling out some and my front teeth had come to be be on full display when i smiled, you can see the full height of my upper incisors (but not the gums) which i really liked. I had a very toothy smile, my arches were still narrow though, so the smile was not very wide, but just the fact that i showed full height of my teeth made me look very youthful. There are studies that show that high teeth smiles look more youthful and that our lips cover the upper incisors more and more as we age.
Continuing with my case, so after I had moved, i sought out to continue my ortho treatment, while i was inquiring about ALF doctors in my area, i read about homeoblock appliance. Then I found a dentist who claimed to do both ALF and homeoblock, he advertised himself on both of the websites. In reality, he had little knowledge of both, as i found out later. He pushed me towards homeoblock and said it was better and that he doesn't do ALF anymore. So from what I read about the homeoblock online , i thought why not. I will give it a go. But his "homeoblock" was not like the one i read about online. He put the block between the front incisors instead of between the molars... and the block was higher on one side...pretty strange looking. I had to bite on the block with my upper and lower incisors when i wore the appliance and my lower and upper incisors were about the same level and not the upper being slightly in front of the lower. I questioned this relentlessly but he had me convinced that this was the way to go. So I had this treatment for about a year, waiting to see how i will benefit from it. Long story short, i got no benefit from it... only very bad things happened. It placed my lower jaw forward and appeared to have pushed my upper jaw back and upwards. When i smile now, you can only see about 2/3 of my upper incisor teeth, unless i make the effort to lift up my lips, which makes me look weird and not like i'm smiling but pulling a weird face. It looks like my maxilla had shortened because of this treatment (or maybe my upper teeth have retruded). I also have an open bite now. I'm very upset about this and very depressed and at first i wasn't able to pinpoint what changed with my face. I wasn't too focused on my teeth at the time, i had other life changes going on, such as moving to a new place and starting over. But I knew what the guy doing wasn't right, and i stopped treatment with him about a year and some months later.
Now I'm really worried about what that appliance did to me, because not only did it not help me but added even more to my problems. I can't believe some dentists have no conscious! He was not even using a real homeoblock. I contacted the homeoblock inventor and he told me that is not what a homeoblock should look like.
I'm very scared that his stupid appliance may have messed me up permanently. I think my maxilla has shorted. I've started with an ALF ortho again but i wasn't able to express this to him yet because until now i hadn't realize exactly what happened. Now I'm starting to freak out because I don't want to live with a shorted maxilla. It's bad enough i had to live life with my bicupids removed, not this as well.
So that is what happened to me and why i would be interested in FP and pulling the maxilla forward and downwards. I'm hoping that growing the maxilla down wouldn't be difficult, I think i read Dr Mew mentioned that growing the maxilla down was the easy thing to do, but i'm not sure if hes talking about something entirely different from what i need. In any case, I am hoping to avoid surgery and would like to know if any face pulling device could help me.
I think my maxilla needs to come forward (i don't know by how much) and downwards (by 2-3 mm).
I'd like to hear your inputs. Thanks.
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