As far as I am concerned, most gummy smiles are caused by orthodontics, at least made a lot worse by it. I’m willing to bet most that have self-consciousness about their gummy smiles also had orthodontics when they were younger. Here is my story and how I resolved mine.
My story (in brief)
- At age 18 went through orthodontic to resolve crowding and finally have a smile with no self-consciousness.
- was told I had stopped growing already, and I had no space in my jaw to fit all teeth, so there was no other option but to extract
- in my naivety, I trusted the Dr. and went through with the extraction orthodontic treatment (4 bicuspids extracted)
- 2 years later braces came off, I had straight teeth but the smile was made narrow and the teeth was pulled back to fill the extraction spaces. I also had more gummy smile because the teeth were pulled back.
- for the next two years, I fought with self-consciousness about my smile still. trying to change my thinking, but it never worked.
- See I had straight teeth but my smile was narrow, I became envious of people with wide smile,like G-Dragon’s a leader of Korean hip-hop R&B group,music I was into at the time
- I learned that to have a great smile, the dental arch has to be wide and the teeth has to be forward in the face. Which is the opposite of what happened to me when I went through with extraction orthodontics, where the teeth were pushed back and made more narrow to fill in the gaps made by extraction.
- The realization that my smile will always be inferior since I had 4 adult teeth missing, one day I think I got tired of it all and began to explore the possibility to reverse what was done
- months of research online ensued, and finally found the right orthodontist to go through it all again the second time, this time to reverse everything that was done by my first Dr.
- we began to expand the palate wider (sideways expansion) and push the front teeth forwards (forward expansion), also tipping the front teeth forwards to a great degree to the point of having open bite. (will come back to this later)
- My smile got wider and wider, gummy smile disappeared, and face began to improve, and also chronic nasal congestion went away with it.
As the front teeth came forwards in the face and tipped forwards, the gummy smile disappeared
I soon discovered that the reason for my gummy smile was that the front teeth were pushed back and tipped back from previous orthodontics, also during regular orthodontics the whole maxilla is known to drop down as well which contributes to the problem. It’s like the lips remain in its regular position still but since the teeth are now further back and down than nature intended the gums show during a smile. The ideal smile has the lips covering 1/4 of the teeth still. (or something similar to that, I forgot the exact ratio), so basically the gummy smile means, not the lips fault but the teeth aren’t high and forward enough to prevent the gums from showing.
Knowing all of this now, I feel sad when I see kids in braces that already have gummy smiles, their conditions are being made worse.
See what ortho’s stuck in the stone age have to realize is that patients come to your office not necessary for the straight teeth, but to have an attractive face. I read many troubled people’s comments online who have had years of orthodontics but when the braces came off they had self consciousness about their gummy smiles and one Dr. even had the nerve to tell the patient to practice smiling in the mirror to show less gums. What the hell is that? Smile is an spontaneous action not something you practice and reenact lol…
Impacting the Maxilla up and forwards
Another thing that happens with regular braces is that it somehow always increases facial height. (the face is getting longer)
Dr. Mike Mew gives following reason for this:
“The reason behind this is not immediately clear, however it does appear that conning, sore teeth, uncomfortable bites and the fact that extrusion is the easiest movement, are behind this.
1) Conning- is complex to explain but the idea is that as the teeth move around there is a reciprocal force over the periodontal membrane surrounding the tooth. The only area that this force is missing is through the vertical where the body of the tooth is. As the teeth are moved into position a very complex statistically indeterminate force system is set up where a row of teeth are connected by a flexible wire, the sum of these forces is an extrusion.
2) Sore teeth- the movement of teeth through bone is a chronic inflammatory process and it soon becomes uncomfortable to bite down on a tooth after braces are applied. This reduces the masticatory effort. We forget that our ancestors (who did not have malocclusion) have a significantly higher level level of masticatory effort; it was not uncommon to have worn the first molar crowns away completely by the middle of the 4th decade. This reduction is though to be a causative factor in the aetiology of malocclusion and directly linked to the increase in the vertical dimension. – This is encouraged by asking patients to eat a softer diet.
3) Uncomfortable bites- when ever the bite is disturbed its efficiency is reduced lowering the potential forces of mastication that are comfortable, thus reducing the forces of mastication.
4) Extrusion is the easiest movement and intrusion is the most difficult movement to make. Thus if a wire is place indiscriminately all the teeth will move closer to the height of the highest tooth in the bite rather than the lowest tooth in the bite.
All of these factors seem to be in play to increase the length of the face, and there seems to be a certain level of rebound growth, such as “late mandibular growth” is often seem after orthodontic therapy.”-Dr. Mike Mew
The following is very eye-opening and it holds keys to the issue at hand and the solutions.
“One reason why this has not been identified as a problems is that the normative data that is a foundation stone of modern orthodontics was taken in the middle of the last century. Malocclusion seems to have started about 10,000 years ago (for the earliest groups) and has progressively increased over this period with a substantial increase in the last 100 years, and be directly related to the standards of living. The validity of the assumption that individuals not showing malocclusion in the middle of the 20th century are ideal should questioned. A more rational assumption drawing on the skull shape of paleolithic or mesolithic man and progressing through to modern man would suggest that there has been a significant lengthening of the anterior facial skeleton over this period and the normative data that is commonly used represents an increase in the vertical. As such it is often considered that increasing the vertical is a desirable objective. In many or even most cases this “burning of the vertical” is thus not a concern for the profession.
However in a percentage of case, usually the most difficult ones, the vertical is greatly increased. In these cases a further increase in the vertical is more likely what ever therapy is placed and more undesirable. It is the ability of any orthodontist to treat these case and gain a stable result that is the test of their therapy.”-Dr. Mike Mew
Basically what he is saying is that the standard that orthodontists use to treat their patients is the skull of already less than ideal skull of modern man taken in the last century. But human being’s skulls began to stray from the ideal more than 10,000 years ago when we went from hunter gatherer to agricultural society, and has gotten substantially a lot worse in the last 100 years. What is happening to the skull from 10,000 years ago to skulls of today is that the skull is getting longer (maxilla is dropping down), crooked teeth is just a symptom of this main problem which is the face is getting longer.
As the face gets longer, the palate will get more narrow and shorter since there is only so much skull bone, all of the dimensions are getting robbed by this melting downward growth, which causes the crooked teeth. And orthodontists don’t see the underlying major issue behind crooked teeth which is the maxilla too far down in the face, because they are using data (skull measurements) that’s already in trouble and far from ideal.
Braces makes thing worse because…
braces seem to extrude teeth, (make the teeth come out of the gums more) could be due to exerting all that pressure to move the teeth, the teeth don’t just move sideways but as it moves sideways it’s being lodged out slightly. sort of like if you tie some rope to a tree trunk and attach it to a Truck and drive off, that sideways pressure will begin to pull the roots out.
And another factor being patients with braces may begin to engage their mastication less and less since they are encouraged to stick to soft foods, and traditional braces causes so much teeth soreness that they will often stick to soup days after their monthly appointments.
Why did the ancient man of 10,000 years ago have more ideal faces that were shorter and more forward? ample evidence suggests that they simply chewed way more than we do now and had way stronger jaw muscles. If you can picture your skull bones as sort of clay that is susceptible to be molded over time by your muscles than you can imagine how stronger muscles with hold that maxilla up and forward more versus weaker muscles will cause that face to drop down and elongate. This is why it makes sense that major change in diet that happened as a result of advent of agriculture which meant (cooked carbohydrate available to the mass population) a lot less chewing required. Will show its effects on the skulls.
If you have gummy smiles it could just be a symptom of a larger problem that is, your maxilla has dropped down and the reason for this could be that you have weak jaw muscles and the reason for the weak jaw muscles is because you are completely accustomed to the modern lifestyle of barely chewing at all anymore. Dr. Mike Mew suggests we do 5{ae022d2295c0485893c83c8425b5bfafafba893c2d19b1bb9bc4c7c9bf3eeba6} of the chewing now of our ancestors.
Some signs that you may have weak jaw muscles
- you leave your mouth open during rest
- you drool during sleep
- you snore during sleep
- you stay away from tough foods
- you take in a lot of liquid calories (juices, smoothies,etc)
- you don’t ever chew gum
- you feel like your face is narrow, or long
- dark circles under eyes (may more to do with improper tongue posture, but jaw muscles contribute great to that problem as well)
- long nose, or roman nose
- crooked teeth / narrow palate
- small jaws
But I think the easiest ways to tell is that what is happening during sleep.or during unconscious moments (like deep into video game, etc) is your mouth coming open and teeth not in contact?
Because how strong your jaw muscle is, determines the resting posture of your jaws. Stronger jaw muscles will keep your jaws closed even when not paying attention. It’s like if you have strong jaw muscles it has not problem holding your lower jaw up, but if they are weak, it’s unable to curl that weight of lower jaw up at all. Kinda like a gym when doing bicep curls, a big difference once you’ve been training for several months to hold that barbell up versus as a newbie. I think naturally the jaw muscles want to remain in that closed position at rest, it just has to be strong enough to do so.
Once I started chew more and chew more and more gum to train the jaw muscles I saw a significant difference in my mouth posture, my jaws remain closed most of the time with teeth in contact versus before my teeth would come apart all the time at rest.
A lion’s face is beautiful to look at and you would never question if it developed with the right growth or not, or whether it has crooked teeth or not, it simply has a great looking face , you could say it is well developed (as nature intended), it’s face looks powerful. And that powerful look comes from those powerful looking jaws, you would never question that those jaws are powerful as shit, used to rip through the flesh of its prey. The Lion has to use those jaws to survive, and since the jaws are utilized the muscles develop accordingly and the jaw bones grows to its potential so that it can support the strenuous stress & workload of lions daily chewing.
It would follow that if the lion has such well developed jaws than the rest of the face has grown properly in relation, after all the jaws / mouth is the base of the face.
What would happen if a lion started to do only 5{ae022d2295c0485893c83c8425b5bfafafba893c2d19b1bb9bc4c7c9bf3eeba6} of their chewing?
Inversely, what sort of face would humans have if we actually did 20x more chewing on a daily basis. Surely the muscles in the face would be a lot stronger and quite possible our jaws and face would look a lot different as well. It means that we would grow up with enough room for all our wisdom teeth and even space behind them… Would it create changes even in adults?
We want to reduce facial height, to intrude teeth and bring that whole maxilla up and forward in the face.. that is the goal anyway…
When teeth comes out of the gums we get facial lengthening, so we want to go the opposite direction which is to intrude the teeth. Most of us that had braces have our teeth extruded from the gums more than ideal.
“Intrusion of the whole dentition would be and is very difficult to achieve. “-Dr. Mike Mew
“The idea scenario would be the impaction of the whole upper maxilla, and if possible its forward movement. This would allow the mandible to auto-rotate forwards to meet the upper dentition in much the same way that it did before, with the net result that the face would move up and forwards- an anterior rotation.”
I think that the problem achieving this is that it is difficult to change at all. I can recognise many people by their posture, which means that this does not change much over time in a normal situation. It makes sense that people become accustomed to a particular muscle length or many be to a certain volume within the mouth”-Dr. Mike Mew
As I mentioned earlier when we advanced my front teeth up and forward and creating considerable forwarding tipping, I immediately developed an open bite. (my bottom front teeth and upper front teeth would not meet even if the mouth was closed) The degree of this open bite was reduced over time as my lower jaw came forward a bit and bottom teeth advanced forwards more but it still wasn’t enough to meet the upper teeth because the upper teeth had been tipped up and forwards. Keep in mind this was all done on purpose, actually the upper front teeth that have been tipped up and forward were now in more correct position, and it was this forward movement and tipping forwards & upwards that removed the gummy smile. My orthodontists plan was nearing the end of the treatment to put special type of wire in mouth that exert pressure downwards on the back teeth only to intrude the back teeth, and as the back teeth intrudes, the remaining open bite will close.
Well today I report that I no longer will have to do any of that anymore as my bite has closed naturally because I have naturally intruded my teeth by strengthening my jaw muscles and keeping teeth in contact more now than ever. Since I have learned that teeth will intrude into the gums if teeth is in contact more than 8 hours a day. So now I nearly have enough room for 4 bicuspid implants and the bite has closed, with front teeth that is more forward and (possibly) up in the face and no more gummy smile. A palate that is wider the tongue rests comfortably on the upper palate, still training and remembering to keep this correct posture and proper swallow pattern on a daily basis, it is consorted effort but I continue with good motivation because I continue to notice subtle improvements to the face.
My goal is to push the boundaries of what changes can be accomplished in adults by changing muscle tone and posture.
Conclusion
Gummy smiles in my case was produced by poor orthodontics that pulled my teeth back. The gummy smile was greatly reduced as I went through orthodontics a second time to expand my teeth forward and tipped upwards.
It is also possible for one to have gummy smiles because the maxilla has dropped down and back in the face (most likely because you were a mouth breather, or you have weak jaw muscles), so to reverse this would be to bring the maxilla up and forward in the face by developing closed mouth posture with tongue on the roof of mouth and jaws closed at rest. Jaw closed at rest comes with stronger muscle tone in the jaws.
The tongue’s correct position in the mouth is against the upper palate, this provides natural upwards and forward force on the maxilla. This is how natural beauty is regulated, by the tongue holding the maxilla up and forward in the face. also having strong jaw muscles will ensure that the jaws remain closed during rest and which aids the tongue in resting on the upper palate. In theory, this natural force of the tongue, over time, adds up to bring the maxilla up and forward in the face. This change is seen by orthotropics in children but also in adults by oral myologists (therapy to retrain the oral muscles). In adults, The drastic changes may take some time and exactly how long it will take is not quite known and there isn’t much testimonials out there because most adults don’t know the importance of this and habitual posture do not change without consorted effort from the individual and that effort can only come from putting high importance on this matter through understanding and knowledge.
“It is hard for an adults to change their posture, although situations such as strokes and neural damage are examples where this has occurred naturally- although negatively. It is difficult to explain simply where the changes would occur, this is the difference between and upswing and a downswing. Although an upswing(maxilla go up and forward in the face) would certainly reduce a gummy smile.” -Dr. Mike Mew
Consider that interesting experiment by Hohl where the monkey’s jaw muscles were re-attached and reconfigured differently via surgery as to make the jaw muscles stronger and the result was that the stronger jaw muscles had the effect of reducing the facial height and bringing the maxilla up and forward and the lower jaw to swing forwards, over time. Showing undoubtedly that muscles move bones. Again I believe this kind of change is also possible in adults where a man eating soft modern diet suddenly traveled back in time to hunter gatherer days and began eating nothing but tough diet, surely his face would remodel over time to handle all of the stress of hard chewing.
Regards,
CP
I think you’re limiting yourself by not face pulling anymore. I mean even Mike Mew is seeing very great changes in adults with his specific FP technique..Also, have you read up on the “jawcesizer yet?
PS: Here are some interesting links, let me know what you think of them
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003996995001360
http://www.drwongsuni.com.sg/jaw-reduction.html
According to what I’ve seen on the links I have learned from this blog and many other sites, the strengthening of the jaw muscles (along with proper tongue posture of course) should move the mandible both horizontally and outward, even in adults.
What Dr.Mike Mew said about posture makes sense and indicated that if you change your posture you will change your face, but most people are simply accustomed to their current way of living/functioning (ie: Facial and general posture) so therefore it cannot happen for them. This is why stuff like Face Pulling, wearing ALF’s, correcting body posture, and even NCR (optional in m opinion) should be a vital part of everyone’s regimen. Dr.Mike Mew is just now catching on to how great face pulling can be for adults and this is just the beginning….
Thoughts?
I tried face pulling 30 min a day technique with hockey mask, and did not see significant results with it, this is why I am now focusing on posture only.
Face pulling with hockey mask is only 30 min a day of force but correcting tongue posture means you’re exerting upwards and forward pressure on the maxilla 24/7. much longer than 30 min.
This is why I believe posture is more crucial than face pulling 30 min a day.
I know Dr. Mike Mew began treating adult patients with his face mask technique but he is asking patients to wear that for longer than 8 hours a day… so he must also think 30 min a day is insufficient amount of time.
I have not read anywhere how successful his face mask treatment technique is doing though. If one wears that mask for longer than 8 hours I can see how that may begin to move bones. but given my current work schedule and everything wearing a full face mask all day long is not feasible.
jawcesizer, first time seeing it, I feel like I’m doing work exercise with my jaw by chewing my swedish gum several hours a day, and its probably alot easier to chew gum than that thing?
yes I blogged about people reducing jaw size by reducing the muscle, etc from bruxism.
Lol okay, don’t do it then and focus on that. I don’t see that really working too much for seeing great change like what has been shown with Plato and patient zero, but maybe you can stop what’s happening to you and support the progress that you for some reason wanted to “cut off early” because you didn’t want to face pull for more than a year or try Dr.Mike Mew’s face pulling device. Honestly, practicing proper tongue posture without face pulling is like attempting to fix your posture/pelvic tilt by standing up straight, but okay. I’m already pretty good looking as it is so I’m gonna go and succeed at this. I work from home (network marketing and trading) so give me 2-4 years and I will make a profound change and nobody will stop me… Evidence is there whether Dr.Mike Mew chooses to accept it now or later. I’m sure you will come to your senses as you’re a smart man and come off as a rebel.
You know, Dr.Mike Mew actually ignores Plato and patient zero’s progress when giving his speeches about “omg maybe this is possible, I’ve seen this happen but idk aRrrrRghhh I have an accent Mate” speeches. He also ignores the many adult patients that have gotten great results from the DNA appliance (including MAXILLA GROWTH, which he mentioned then brushed off) which goes against almost everything he teaches….Although I agree with his tongue posture theory, but I believe all of that (except for chewing on hard gum, I believe this would be great for creating a nice, square jaw with a good looking gonial angle and can even be responsible for encouraging some subtle forward mandible movement and support for forward mandible movement)
I seriously wonder why you follow this guy sometimes and actually stop what’s working so early.
Plato says at 1 year you will see GOOD RESULTS, however, he never said anything about seeing OPTIMAL results at that point in time.
So yea, you really bug me out lol. If I were to follow Mike Mew 100{ae022d2295c0485893c83c8425b5bfafafba893c2d19b1bb9bc4c7c9bf3eeba6}, it would probably take me decades to finally see the results I wanna see, so this is why I follow other doctors that also have some great idea.
Well, best of luck.
PS: Yea, the jawcesizer wouldn’t be as good as the gum you have discovered.. And btw, to the poster above questioning whether or not CP has seen changes in his Gonial angle, the post above that I posted with the asian lady relaxing her Massetter muscles clearly shows how much those muscle groups affect the appearance of the jawline and gonial angle.
PPS: I know how you look, CP. Lol.. I won’t say anything but just know that I know. >=]
So what do you think works Blah? Be curious to know.
I’ve been doing a little bit of facepulling – I haven’t had a retainer made so I’ve just used a sports retainer and attached shoelaces to it. It works, but the way I’m doing makes it super slow! Gonna take me years
Have you made up a retainer, or do you already have braces?
I agree with some of what you’ve written re Mike Mew, made me laugh a little. I find the way he presents himself quite distracting.
Hello
ı just discovered this place.what is FP technique?what is a fce mask?from where?how to use? Please answer? I am sorry for my bad english.
Hi CP — what is the best way to contact you? I tried sending an email but have not received a response and am just wondering if you received it.
try again cpeveryday@gmail.com
Dear CP,
Have you noticed if your gonial angle has changed at all since you started treatment in 2012? And if so, by how much?
lower jaw is coming forward but to change gonial angle I imagine would take more time, and the face would have to significantly shift to horizontal growth, I’m not there yet.
Hi claiming power,
I may also get my teeth extractions reversed but I still researching dental implants. Your site is inspirational. Good luck on your journey!
Thank you so much for your recent posts! Your blog is getting better and better. You are helping a lot of people through your blog and you are more well informed than most patients undergoing this type of treatment. Keep it up! I’m sure you have a lot of readers even though we don’t always comment.
On to my questions.
1. What exactly do you mean by an open bite? Do you mean your upper and lower premolars aren’t touching when you bite together?
2. How many mm do you think you have expanded – anterior and transverse respectively?
3. Doctors call this type of treatment “reversing extraction/retraction orthodontics”. Is that really what it is though, true reversal? If it is, how come we didn’t have an open bite to begin with, when we first started the retractive braces treatment? I wonder if this open bite thing occurs in children undergoing orthotropics treatment as well, or if it’s just adults.
thanks for your comment,
1. look at this blog post, http://claimingpower.com/adult-palate-expansion/, its the first 6 teeth. premolars are touching but the front 6 aren’t.
2. I have to check this with my orthodontist….sorry don’t have the exact numbers… I will get total numbers and plan to make a separate blog post about it. I mean we expanded quite a bit to the point where I’m now wider than where I was before I went through extraction orthodontics.
3. in orthotropics in child, open bite is routinely created. we are doing similar thing for adults maybe not to the extent of child but still making an open bite in the beginning on purpose. Why? partly because the upper palate expands faster than the bottom so we first expand the front upper teeth forwards and upwards where the placement is more ideal in the face and then have the lower catch up afterwards. You first have to get the upper out of the way before the lower can move forward. since when retracted the teeth was pushed back and down. now to reverse we want to bring the teeth up and forwards. while doing this since we expand the uppers first, there is why open bite is frist created. hope this makes sense.
Thanks a lot for clarifying! It does makes sense. Are you saying the open bite is going to go away as the bottom teeth are moved forward?
We’re looking forward to a post in more detail about your treatment!
Of course, we appreciate all your other posts as well. It’s great to see that you’re updating more frequently these days.
Have you ever thought about going into dentistry professionally? Seriously, maybe you should!
Hi Claiming Power. I enjoy your reading your site and am planning to start what you are doing soon using the jawcersizer and the patakara lip trainer. I think that if a few of us were able to prove that lack of hardness in the diet is whats causing all of these crowding issues it would force these fuckers to actually listen and maybe reconsider their butchery. Whjo knowsm maybe if enough of us do it we can destroy the jaw surgery industry too!
Anyway Id like to ask you a question about what is actually achievealbe by doing this. If its possible to intrude the teeth by strengthening the tongue and facial muscles then do you think its also possible to create new bone in the face which would open up the extraction spaces and make room for implants? I ask this because I understand that exercise in general, particularly weight bearing exercise where the muscle is contracted, stimulates bone growth. Maybe its possible, given the right diet, to force the body to grow new bone in he place where bone was ripped out when the teeth were extracted.
Does this seem feasible to you from what you have read? If extraction spaces can be reopened with expandersthen I see no reason that the tongue can’t force the body to do this also. The body is very clever.
Anyway keep up the good work and let us know how you are getting on.
Thanks for writing Martin.
yes I pretty much agree with what you wrote, and that is my theory as well.
I have already re-opened space for all my bicuspids and expanded quite a bit, so it already showed me how moldable the bone is even as an adult.
So its actually a complete joke when I hear orthodontist that regurgitate the old prehistoric notion that adult palate is not expandable or that only way for correction is surgery.
During my expansion phase I had to get second set of molds to get second expander since I out-expanded the first one. So I had the opportunity to compared the before and after molds of my teeth and I clearly saw that the bone underneath had gotten bigger and changed shape.
Consider that light wire braces and appliances use light constant pressure to move the teeth and remodel bones. In much the same way, I believe the tongue and the jaw muscles provide similar light forces to move the bones over time.
I will be making some changes to the site soon with some good content coming so stay tuned.
Pretty nicely depicted information (live example set in, largely appreciable). Such an awful incident it might be for you especially when treating your teeth had certainly evolved more prominent gums (gummy smile) afterwards. Knowing the facts with a treatment of bracing is also an eye-opener, pathetically accepted. Details are much in depth, including I think almost each and every little point that is important to know for someone. Please keep posting such an informative & precise write-up…
Thanks for the info. What a great read. I got braces 10 yrs ago for an over bite and have regretted it ever since as unfortunately now have a gummy smile. My dentist suggested raising my gums. What do you think?? Any insight into this procedure. Had you considered this?
I can only speak for my experience, but the gummy smile was reduced for me by bringing the teeth forwards again. By using braces, the teeth are pulled back in the face and this causes the top jaw to fall down and the gum gets exposed. I’m not sure what dentist is referring by “raising” gums. The top jaw has to be raised. I’m trying to do this the natural way but most people take the surgery route
What would you suggest for someone with a long face who wants to intrude their molars and close their bite? What’s the most effective way?
How much time did it take for you to notice changes in the vertical dimension and how long until the bite was closed? Can you estimate the amount of intrusion achieved?
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