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Orthodontic treatment with surgery
Orthodontic surgery
If orthodontics is the ideal way to align teeth,it is sometimes necessary to use surgery, called maxillofacial to reposition the jaws when the problem is a bad alignement of the jaws and not only of the teeth. It allows the patient to regain some very important oral functions: chewing, nasal breathing, closing of the mouth at rest. It corrects a skeletal problem in the absence of growth.
The appearance and proportions of the face are thereby improved. Moving the jaws also moves the teeth ,thus reducing the overall orthodontic treatment time. In jaw discrepancy cases surgery should be associated with orthodontics to get ideal jaw realtionships and teeth alignement for an more ideal result.
The appearance and proportions of the face are thereby improved. Moving the jaws also moves the teeth ,thus reducing the overall orthodontic treatment time. In jaw discrepancy cases surgery should be associated with orthodontics to get ideal jaw realtionships and teeth alignement for an more ideal result.
Who needs orthodontic-surgical treatment?
Patients after 16 to 18 years who have completed their growth and who present a discrepancy between the two jaws (underbite,overbite,width issues) that is too large to be corrected by the simple movement of teeth. Orthodontic preparation for surgery may begin before the end of growth, but any growth should be completed at the time of surgery.
How it actually happens?
Figure 1: Effect of lower jaw surgery on the facial profile.
The patient wears braces for 6 to 18 months. During the preparation phase, Dr. David Benguira aligns teeth ideally on the jaw bones. Sometimes it makes the jaw dicrepancy more visible before the surgical correction; it is expected and will be corrected at the time of surgery.
The surgeon will meet the patient two months before the operation with recent plaster models of the teeth to validate the intended surgical plan with him. A few days before the operation buttons or hooks are placed in the mouth by the orthodontist.
The surgeon uses the hooks or buttons to attach elastics between the upper and lower teeth to stabilize the correction and facilitate bone healing.
Four to six weeks after the operation the patient comes back to see Dr Benguira to proceed with the final orthodontic movements, while the mobility of the jaw slowly returns to normal.
The post surgical phase usually lasts 6 months.