Today I finally took courage and read the famous article Is It Mental or Is It Dental?
A lot of courage is required for this task - this is actually scary! When I was finished the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. People of the modern world eat refined foods which causes our craniums to develop improperly.
My face is a typical face that didn't grow correctly (even though it's a very common problem and not a very strange thing). All the things in my face I used to be bothered with are related to this:
1. Oblong and too narrow face.
2. Chin too far back.
3. Too big distance between nose and upper lip.
4. Protruding and too narrow nose.
5. White of the eye too big and downwards slanted eyes.
6. Black circles under eyes.
7. Asymmetrical face.
8. Creases at the mouth and the cheeks.
9. No visible cheekbones.
My goodness, these are things I spent years of learning to conceal with make-up! As you may have guessed retraction orthodontics makes this worse. The article also stated that soft tissues such as cartilage and tongue aren't affected by an underdeveloped cranium, they grow as they will. This is the reason why people with an underdeveloped upper jaw often have trouble breathing through their noses - narrow nose, adenoids etc. Not only that, this could even be the reason of myopia because the eye sockets don't grow to their full size which causes the eyeballs to get squeezed. It's just a theory but it makes a lot of sense.
Breathing difficulties and myopia can cause you to tilt your head downwards to make breathing and seeing easier. This way the airway opens up and it can interfere with your posture and cause you to slouch. Reading this made me all sweaty! These things have turned my life up side down! But you know what, I just laugh at the whole thing! It's just too much, too crazy. It's true, I'm laughing, because what are you going to do about it? You are a tiny human being who lives on a little planet and you’re basically in a good place. Still, it's scary and more people should read the article, Is it Mental or Is it Dental.
On the subway home today I couldn't help looking at people around me. Some of them with perfect profiles, others with sunken faces - worse than me. After all it's very interesting, isn't it?
Picture borrowed from Is It Mental or Is It Dental. Note the long distance between the nose and the mouth on the two women. The article says that the long face is related to the teeth appearing big and protruding. The boy has a big overjet and in many cases this has been treated by retracting the teeth in the upper jaw (extraction/retraction orthodontics). Imagine doing that to this boy. The profile below the nose would become diagonal and unnatural, nothing would be done about the position of the lower jaw except possibly pushing it further back. You can clearly see how bad of an idea that would be. (Or maybe it's just because yours truly had this kind of treatment done and knows how much damage it does.)
I can't help but look at friends who I know used to wear braces, some of who had teeth extracted, and give their teeth and jaws a quick glance. Those who didn't have teeth extracted have the broadest smile, no doubt about it. They don't all have an inwardly slanted upper lip but usually straight (convex is the ideal, like most fashion models). But of course I avoid staring, it would have been weird if I did. :)
I almost worked myself to death today. To be able to write articles about overbites and jaw surgery I have to try to figure out exactly what happened to me. I finally gathered enough strength to open an old photo album with pictures of myself. I could never stand looking at pictures of myself as a kid, a face that I was forced to have damaged to please my parents and the dentists. (At least, that's how I used to look at it, I know it's not entirely true.)
I found pictures of myself as an eight year old. What can I say? My upper jaw is too far... back. Can you imagine? You have a 10 mm overjet - how the heck are you supposed to be able to figure out that the upper jaw is too far back? (The dentists should tell you this because they should know, shouldn't they?) But this is often the case, or so I've read, and I could clearly see that this was the case with me. The teeth appeared to be protruding but that's a different story. The truth is that the position of the teeth is usually perfect only they have been pushed out because the upper jaw is too narrow. Therefore the jaw is to blame, not the teeth!
Next thing that happens is that the upper jaw stops the lower jaw from developing properly and you end up with a weak chin. It's said that these problems keep getting worse the older you get and that was something I could determine from looking at these pictures. The face grows longer and longer and the profile becomes more and more diagonal. It really is pretty scary. Traditional orthodontics that move teeth backwards guide the face to grow even more wrong. Basically, they do the opposite of what should've been done.
Furthermore, to not help an eight year old who has this kind of problem? No, you choose to wait until it's too late. That's bordering on evil in my opinion! From what I've come to understand, scientists have known for about a century that when the cranium, the jaws and the teeth start to grow in the wrong direction they will continue to do so and if anything, get worse.
I feel disfigured. After having read all this I wonder how anybody has ever been able to find me attractive or cute. I may look alright from the front? I wonder if my super fast metabolism has anything to do with this. The cranium didn't develop the way it should which makes you look sick. I look like a person who has melted and got smudged out.
Maybe I should stop working this late...
Researching the topic of traditional orthodontics gone wrong has been extremely disturbing and very depressing at times. It's like facing your deepest fears. But it has made me grow emotionally. I think the reasons I have been able to come this far are that I now:
1. Know what is wrong with me, that something IS wrong and that I didn't just imagine things.
2. Know that there are other people out there regretting this type of traditional orthodontics "treatment".
3. Know that the orthodontists that treated me made a mistake even though extraction orthodontics is still an accepted method today. People afterwards said to me, "You look fabulous!" and seemed satisfied with the way I turned out but I know now that I didn't imagine things and that my health and my appearance were damaged (well, were bad to begin with but were made worse). I feel that in the end I am the winner because I was right. It might sound weird but it means a lot to me and is closely related to the fact that I don't have to feel crazy anymore.
4. Know that I can help other people. At least I can reach out. Then, if people don't share my opinions, that's up to them.
I will gladly admit it: My face was damaged by orthodontics. It's alright, I can talk about it now without having too many feelings of anxiety.
Thankfully, I'm quite cool about my looks. I have come to realize that my appearance - and with that I'm referring to everything from eyes, forehead, lips, chin and face shape - has been affected by on the one hand the initial malocclusion and then, as the experts put it, been "damaged" even more by orthodontics.
But I can't let this break me. I am pleased with the way I look, I realize that would never be a super model anyway and I intend to live my life happy despite what happened. I will try to avoid "what if...?" thoughts because that's not the way life goes. Instead I'm almost grateful that this happened to me because that way I might be able to inform and help others. It’s in my nature.
It has been hard since this proved to be a bigger topic than I could've ever imagined and the risks associated with some of the orthodontic treatments are far more serious than I first thought. Still it is very interesting! I'm lucky to have been able to preserve my composure. I could have gotten really depressed but I somehow didn’t.
When I first started researching this I found the whole topic extremely disturbing. But I decided to face my fears, for other peoples' sake too. I read that, "adults with problems due to extraction orthodontics often have difficulties putting words to what they feel". I used to say that "it doesn't feel like my mouth anymore", that it was "diffucult to bite my teeth together" which are both very vague statements, especially when my teeth look fine to someone who is not aware of the debate. It has proved almost impossible to explain to a doctor. When I visited the American orthodontist, they said, "ok, maybe your jaw muscles are a bit weak?" and I can't blame them for thinking that. But the truth is that the mouth is too small for the tongue, the dental arch has an abnormal shape and the positions of the jaws are wrong - especially the lower jaw is too far back. And these are the causes of my bite being wrong, it's no mystery anymore.
