Besides getting hair cut and improving skin condition, is there something one can do to improve the facial appearance by changing bones & muscles? What is MyoBrace and how does it differ from Orthotropics? Is Starecta a real cure? How to become more attractive over time?
We all know that bone is remodeled by long term forces.
Besides putting your body party in crazy apparatus like in foot binding or neck rings, it is the way we posture our body with our muscles that reshapes it overtime.
IE: A man in India that kept his arm raised for religious reasons.
So if you correct the facial muscle imbalances, one could unlock their growth potential to achieve a better looking face.
Each muscle group has certain affect on the facial bone underneath, the bone is at the effect not the cause of problem. Crooked teeth, jaws, or facial bone is at the effect of muscular imbalance.
When diagnosing problems with our faces which include:
- TMD
- Assymetry
- Crooked Teeth
- Underdeveloped Maxilla
- Underdeveloped Mandible
- Open Bite
- Long face
- Flat Cheeks
- Sleep Apnea
- ENT
And on and on, our immediate attention goes to the problems.
Fix my Buck Teeth! Fix my misaligned Jaws! Remove my jaw pain!
And these immediate fixes often require a doctor that can perform mechanical procedures.
But it is important to understand what caused the problem in the first place or you run the risk of relapse after spending thousands. When you operate at the level of treating symptoms, it is like removing a tumor without addressing the smoking habit.
John Mew protest against Dentists / Orthodontists’ lack of valid consent for patients who are ill informed and were told they must get jaw surgeries when it can be avoided by alternative treatment like Orthotropics.
It is shocking to see the relapse rate of Jaw Surgeries.
Proffit’s 2007 studies yielded data on 2264 jaw surgery patients, and found that 67% of patients could expect ‘moderate relapse’, with 20% showing a ‘highly significant change’.
A Truth so Simple it flies by most people’s head
We hear that an advanced concept may fly over our head but could the same occur if the the concept appears too simple for those of us with very analytical mind?
Time and time again, the evidence shows that all problems with face manifested because
1. The tongue is not postured properly
2. Swallowing incorrectly by straining facial muscles
3. Underdeveloped / underused jaw muscle
The force from our muscles are so strong, that overtime incorrect muscle posture and function will twist and deform any bone out of alignment.
So when you are dealing with crooked teeth or unaligned facial bones, you are simply seeing the aftermath of what your facial / oral muscles have done! Not Genetics, Nutrition, Hormones! (in most cases)
When you begin to study real life cases, the other supposed causes pale in comparison to the evidence available for oral posture & function.
MyoBrace is an Oral Appliance that retrians the child’s oral posture and look at the changes it makes. It operates on very similar premise with orthotropics. You know these theories are approaching closer to truths because the proof is in the pudding.
While most people believe facial form is at the effect of genetics, when you begin to see the same person transform like this before your eyes, it begs to question that common belief.
These pictures raises very hot debates in the orthodontic community because these changes aren’t possible by your regular orthodontists without prescribing to jaw surgery.
Below are some key take away points by the doctor that treated this child with Myobrace.
I definitely see the Myobrace system to be a good one because they are finally addressing the cause of problems in face, the muscle posture & function.
When a patient gets jaw surgery but still has lip strain swallow with active mentalis muscle, that patient will continue to suffer.
You can reconfigure the bone all you want, but if the patient never retrains the unconscious muscular habits then the problems will eventually come back. It is so simple when the true cause & effect is understood, yet most doctors are completely missing the boat & many patients still suffer greatly from myriad of problems related to the jaws.
When we get caught up in the treatment of symptoms, understandably so because it is the symptoms that will get our attention in form of physical, mental, emotional pain. We forget to take deeper look at the cause of these issues. What actually brought us to these problems in the first place?
Quite a few of my readers ask me about Starecta, but now a days I am always weary of treatments that operate by physical means especially related to mouth and face because I know how much all of that is at the effect of our muscle posture & function. Their technique to increase teeth height, is this really addressing the cause or alleviating symptoms? If the problem is lack of teeth height then what caused that lack of teeth height in the first place?
When we do not truly understand the cause of the our problems, yet pain exists so we desperately try to manipulate things physically in attempts to find relief, but could we say finding relief alone can be indicator of real success in treatment? For example, I can take Tylenol pills to get rid of headaches, I guess one of the real tests would be to see the relapse rate, for this we need more long term data & Starecta is still quite young.
Any appliance held in mouth for that long of period, is altering the oral environment which will reshape bone overtime. The Spine seems to straighten with Starecta because the occipital bone is being forced to raise up. My biggest concern is that any increase in dental height increases facial height. One of the problem with conventional orthodontics is that braces tend to extrude teeth and result is longer face, flatter cheeks. Also what will happen to tongue posture when you have an appliance that prevents teeth from closing completely.
Yes I do understand that some physical treatments do have its place. For example, palate expansion in my case and other adult patients is first done with an appliance, which is physical. But my point is if you expand your palate with appliance but neglect to correct your oral posture, your palate will relapse anyway so what’s the point.
(Above girl treated by Myobrace) What caused this girl to have what appears to be “underdeveloped” lower jaw?
Unless these causes are understood by the doctors, should they really be qualified to be treating children’s faces?
The girl on the left has active mentalis swallow, the muscle pushed the lower jaw bone back or indented in a sense and overly developed mentalis flipped over the lower lip.
There is a debate regarding Orthotropics vs. Myobrace, which produce better results? for which I do not have enough data yet to make fair assessment on. I see pros and cons of both treatments atm, judging which is better may vary depending on patient and so things get more complex.
But I want my readers to not see these treatments as the exclusive solutions but as merely sign posts that points to the real solution which is our posture & muscles, which we can affect without appliances.
“The best chance of long-term stability lies with the patient correcting her/his own oral posture through a combination of nasal breathing, correct tongue posture and elimination of an atypical swallow (mentalis activity). Mechanical treatments are no substitute for biological, especially if these mechanics interfere with proper tongue posture/function.” -Rohan Wijey (Myobrace Doctor that treated above cases)
Rohan as well as John Mew clearly states that these appliances are merely imperfect attempts to correct posture in the most predictable, repeatable, & easiest manner possible in all patients given cooperation(wear time), but each systems do have its draw backs, and someday a much greater system may replace both techniques. The only perfect solution is the patient doing the work to correct their oral habits which is prime and irreplaceable factor for success.
Yes appliances do play bit more importance in kids as they are short attention span & will not be motivated like an adult that really wants to change. With will power humans can break old patterns. I won’t say it is easy but it is possible. Once you get these shifts in pattern then you will see similar great changes accomplished by Biobloc Orthotropic or Myobrace system.
Catch 22: Granted, you may first need the training wheels which may include palate expansion by an appliance and possibly some head gear wear.
Today members in my ClaimingPower Forum and myself report changes from our oral training efforts, because muscles trumps all.
Let’s get the facts straight, I used to think we want palate expansion to make my palate wider & get nice facial changes… but this was still operating at the surface level of treating symptoms! not much different than how a regular orthodontists operates & treats patients.
The more important premise behind palate expansion, is to get enough space to accomplish success in establishing tongue to roof posture and competent lip seal. That is the golden ticket you are after when beginning this journey with narrow palate. Once that is accomplished, everything else seems to take care of itself. The palate will continue to change and expand from the tongue.
Above shows the consequence of tongue on the palate posture expanding it over time aided by Myobrace.
Barry Raphael is an orthotropic doctor based in New Jersey that also practices Myobrace (http://www.alignmine.com/)
This girl’s muscular balance is being corrected by Myobrace appliance wear (1 hour plus all night during sleep) and exercises. Noticeable difference in obicularis oris muscle strain which shows consequence of improving tongue posture and lip seal both go hand in hand that led to improvement in lip form. The cheeks became more hollow due to correcting swallowing patterns, and skin improved from establishing nasal breathing.
Obicularis Oris Muscle is the band of muscle that wraps around the lips, in the before picture you can almost see it bulge out around the lips in the latter picture (only 6 months later) that bulge has thinned out as the muscle dystrophied from disuse.
Now the patient is still not done with treatment & is still attempting to get full correction in swallowing pattern so she will continue to improve as long as she puts in the effort which I don’t think will be difficult as she is already thrilled with the changes seen.
Myobrace in conjunction with BWS (Bent Wire System, similar to ALF) correcting malocclusion. It is interesting to see that the orthodontists really go wild on the teeth pictures even though patients will care more about the facial changes than anything else, & where the greater story of causality & true efficacy of treatment is seen.
Above shows comments by John Mew and the doctor treating these patients with Myobrace. Both putting forth valid points, but with rivalry / bit of inflammatory undertone regarding both of their techniques which their best efforts in professional manner of language was not able to dress up and hide. John Mew I believe was partly trying to explain to all the fanatic orthodontists that get caught up on the “techniques” and skipping over the real significance of these pictures and that is the opportunity to understand cause and effect of various facial changes.
Conclusion
How to get a more attractive face is to first ask the question what makes an attractive face vs. an unattractive face?
Is there connection to teeth alignment?
Because most kids go through orthodontics it becomes difficult to tell, but you will find that good looking people had naturally straight teeth and never needed braces.
Now to the next level of realization is that not only our teeth but our face is at the effect of how we hold our mouth, how we swallow, breathe & how often we chew each day.
Knowing this should empower you to take action so that you gradually head in the right direction even as adults, towards more beauty, function & health.
-CP
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“There is a reason for everything” -John Mew
Hi Claimingpower!
Im 16 years old i did thumb sucking until i was 6 or 7 years old, after i stopped.
Now my upper teeth is a bit more forward and in my natural tongue rest position my tongue is pressing my front teeth(Incisor?). I’m started to do this tongue on the roof 6 days ago i’m doing this all day, it’s getting more comfortable day by day. So I want to ask some questions
Do you recommend myobrace for me if i’m keep doing this? And another question is if i make my teeth together in light contact i have to move my lower jaw forward but if i do this my lower front teeth going to shaking if i’m hold it in light contact but when i press harder the shaking will stop but i think hard(not very) pressure is not good or is this just because i have to chew more tough foods?
Sorry for my English i hope you understand, Thanks.
practice good posture and chewing as your doing now, without myobrace.
your tongue should not be pressing against front teeth, but on the roof of the palate right at the incisive papilla
sometimes I keep teeth in light contact sometimes harder contact, continue to strengthen the jaw muscle
Thanks for the reply, yes im doing this without pressing my front teeth.
There is an another problem when the tongue roof of mouth i realized yesterday: The right side of my tongue is more up than the left because i can feel biting more on the left side of my tongue than right, so on the left side the tongue slides out more. Is it a problem?
keep practicing, sounds like you have narrow palate for the tongue, continue to try to raise both sides of tongue up and it could expand your palate overtime.
Hello CP,
Thank you for this inspiring story. It is thanks to your blog that I have discovered Orthotropics. I have read and watched anything that I could feed from in order to find out more information, but I can safely say that the content found on here has been tremendously helpful – so big thank you!
I have been exercising the correct tongue position and swallow for a month now and I can already see some very positive changes! I tend to record my progress with pictures each week so that I have hard proof of my journey. This is really helpful for me as it reminds me of my goals and, therefore, helps me to maintain the correct position.
As it stands, I am not in a particularly great financial position as I have just come out of University and started my career so, although I live quite close to Dr Mew’s clinic, I don’t think I will be able to get professional treatment.
I guess the point of this post is just to tell all everyone – skeptics in particular!!- that, even without professional support, facial sculpturing really is possible! A lot of people might ridicule the idea that one can change their bone structure by simply correcting their tongue posture, but this is simply part of the paradigm shift battle. It is the case with all reining paradigms – especially in science – that when a new theory comes along to shake the ground on which the reining paradigm safely resides, the new paradigm gets put through a stage of ridicule before it is accepted by the – in this case – scientific community. Think, for example, of the transition in cosmology from the Ptolemaic cosmology to the Copernican one! How much ridicule and disdain from the scientific community did poor Copernico have to be put through before his theory was finally accepted!
Anyway, thanks a lot for yet another brilliant read, CP. I am looking forward to your next post. I would happily subscribe but – see above – am a struggling professional living in an overpriced London!
VA
Hello ClaimingPower,
Thanks for the wonderful site. I read most of the articles; I must say they are very informative and logical.
I have a question regarding mandible. I’m 26 and my too vertical and too narrow mandible has probably finished growth. The lower jaw bone in masseter area (ramus, subcondyle and angle) has some width from the front view and muscles there are decently developed (thought not perfect). However right after that jaw angle area, starting from about groove for external maxillary artery (roughly below the second molars) jaw abruptly becomes narrower. I understand that a lot of chewing, proper oral posture, swallowing pattern as well as maybe face pulling or/and expander can optimize maxilla (more prominent cheek bones), palate width, and get mandible more horizontal and in masseter area also wider. But what can be done about the rest of narrow lower jaw? As I mentioned mastication already has given/maintained me relatively wider masseter area. However the rest of mandible(body, mental and symphesis) has grown and stayed narrow. I understand that there are some genetic factors of jaw shape, but I don’t think that it is just harmless variation since I don’t have a lot of space after the third molars as Dr. Mew suggest to be optimal. I suspect it’s because of the narrow mandible body and chin. I can’t see what forces would make it wider since there is no tongue down there to make teeth and jaw expand?
Again thanks for the great site.
when the muscles begin to squash the whole face, even lower jaw will be affected, theres muscles that stretch all across it.
Also you may look to see if your activating your mentalis (chin) muscle during swallows which will cause narrow tip of lower jaw
Hi Claiming Power,
I’m a 51 year old female who had braces as a teenager with my four bicuspid molars removed. My teeth have shifted and I’m looking in to getting adult braces. I have a deep bite and the right side of my jaw has popped for as long as I can remember. Now though the popping has stopped but I can’t open my mouth all of the way (I’m currently sleeping in a device I wear on the front of my teeth which keeps my back molars from clenching at night …. it has helped but I still can’t open my mouth as wide as when I had the popping). You don’t realize how wide you open your mouth to eat a sandwich until you can no longer do it! I’m curious if reversing my molar extractions and widening my palette will help with my jaw condition and also give cosmetic benefits (a broader smile). Tomorrow I’m meeting with the only Orthotropic dentist I’ve been able to find in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Dr. Tamara Gray in Keller, Texas. I wonder if you can tell me questions I need to ask to decide if this treatment is right for me. I already met with three other “regular” orthodontists but this was before I learned about Orthotropics and some people reversing their extractions. And I wonder how your treatment is going. Thanks so much. I was thrilled to find your blog!
Yes I believe expansion will help with your jaw condition, I too used to have popping in my jaw. But for me the biggest problem was that I could feel my jaw was too far back.
your symptoms suggests to me that your tongue is postured too low in the mouth. This is why you could be clenching at night. you need to raise the tongue to the roof but this is difficult with narrow palate, so expansion is a good place to start, then begin retraining your oral tongue posture. This will begin to resolve your jaw issue and also begin to make your face better looking over time. Hope this helps
How do I train the tongue to stay up during sleep and lips to stay sealed unconsciously? Every night my tongue and mouth fall open and I get a bad taste on my tongue and dry lips.
What I do is tape my mouth with breathable medical tape to prevent my mouth from opening at night. Once you develop stronger jaw muscles and are able to keep your mouth closed, you can stop using the tape. This method was suggested to me by an oral myologist I’m seeing.
Good idea. Can you tell me what your myologist said? Like, share some insider knowledge. I think even if you strengthen your massateers you still need a good way to train your tongue to stay up unconsciously. That’s what keeps your palate from remodelling downwards.
first strengthen your jaws by chewing. and then practice good posture when awake, as resting posture during waking time seems to transfer to sleeping times.
yep i have been concentrating on keeping the tongue on the roof of the mouth for a few months – dont seem to wake up with saliva over the pillow anymore (sorry) and a few times have woken in the night and noticed my tongue is on the roof of the mouth before i concioulsy put it there
yes signs of making progress there. I find a great time to notice your real posture is right before waking in the half asleep state like you mentioned
I’d always been a mouthbreather until these past few months, I managed to train myself into nasal breathing and correct tongue posture but I’m wondering if my retainer is preventing positive changes. I had braces and a palate expander two years ago- my palate is still quite small though and my teeth are well aligned but not particularly straight. I thought I’d try not wearing my retainer for a while and see if my posture changes would improve my teeth but it seemed that they started relapsing towards my pre-orthodontics mouth within a week (teeth started to crowd). Thoughts?
Hello,
I am very self conscious of my smile and when I do smile it makes my face look awful! I was wondering if you have an email that I can send you some photos of my smile as I don’t want to publish them in public. I would really appreciate your input on my teeth and ways to improve my smile.
Thank you very much, Emma