Firstly, please link us a picture of your home-made device: I am looking into getting professional expanders made locally and would hate for you to injure yourself. Regardless, there are three theories for expansion: Rapid, Slow, and Semi Rapid. 

Let's completely disregard rapid expansion. Slow expansion aims for .25mm of expansion per week and semi-rapid aims for about 1mm per week of expansion. The suture can split and deposit new bone at a rate of 0.5 mm in one direction in a week, and since you are splitting the bone in two directions you can get around 1mm of expansion out of it every week. Mike Mew aims for about 1mm of expansion per week in his patients - but he can professionally monitor them and adjust this rate.

What I can gather is being performed by most professionals is to initially expand quickly and then slow down once you reach the limits of expansion. That is to say, for the first 6-7mm aim for 1mm a week and then slow down for the final stretch to prevent teeth tipping if you hit your genetic potential without realizing it.

Don't set a rate and amount of expansion and follow it without re-evaluation. At the start of every week look at it as if you are starting again and reconsider how much expansion you require. This is the reason professional expansion tends to take so long: They have you go slow since they have so many patients that they can't keep checking your progress. Many people have had great results with no problems with their expansion, but use the same caution as if this has never been done before. Perhaps take the time to scout out some dental offices in your vicinity so that you can get the (often free, or cheap) consultation where they will look around your mouth and you'll know for sure that nothing is of concern. 

The mandible will grow as much as necessary, but it grows more slowly since there are no sutures. Monitor your bite and stop the upper expansion to let the mandible catch up if your bite is becoming significantly off. When you speak of "upper limits" change your vocabulary to "my ideal". You want to expand to where your jaws were supposed to have grown, expanding past this point could open up a whole new set of issues. 

Your tongue being caught between your molars and being bitten is because your mouth is too small to accommodate the entire width of your tongue. Completely relaxed and in proper position, the tongue should never end up caught between teeth while chewing. As you know, your jaw needs to be expanded so that this doesn't happen anymore.

To avoid damaging your tongue until you grow your jaw, you can chew more slowly. Rather than mashing the gum between your teeth slowly chew on it. 

You being 17 years old is very relevant, the younger you are the more rapidly the body will adapt to changes. 

However, being 17, I would urge that you look into the ALF appliance and if it is offered by anyone in your vicinity. It would be worth travelling for at your age as well. You are still a minor and shouldn't discount all the possible ways of having your parents insurance cover professional treatment (if they have any). 

Good luck, keep us updated!

Posted by: Guru

Firstly, please link us a picture of your home-made device: I am looking into getting professional expanders made locally and would hate for you to injure yourself. Regardless, there are three theories for expansion: Rapid, Slow, and Semi Rapid. 

Let's completely disregard rapid expansion. Slow expansion aims for .25mm of expansion per week and semi-rapid aims for about 1mm per week of expansion. The suture can split and deposit new bone at a rate of 0.5 mm in one direction in a week, and since you are splitting the bone in two directions you can get around 1mm of expansion out of it every week. Mike Mew aims for about 1mm of expansion per week in his patients - but he can professionally monitor them and adjust this rate.

What I can gather is being performed by most professionals is to initially expand quickly and then slow down once you reach the limits of expansion. That is to say, for the first 6-7mm aim for 1mm a week and then slow down for the final stretch to prevent teeth tipping if you hit your genetic potential without realizing it.

Don't set a rate and amount of expansion and follow it without re-evaluation. At the start of every week look at it as if you are starting again and reconsider how much expansion you require. This is the reason professional expansion tends to take so long: They have you go slow since they have so many patients that they can't keep checking your progress. Many people have had great results with no problems with their expansion, but use the same caution as if this has never been done before. Perhaps take the time to scout out some dental offices in your vicinity so that you can get the (often free, or cheap) consultation where they will look around your mouth and you'll know for sure that nothing is of concern. 

 

The mandible will grow as much as necessary, but it grows more slowly since there are no sutures. Monitor your bite and stop the upper expansion to let the mandible catch up if your bite is becoming significantly off. When you speak of "upper limits" change your vocabulary to "my ideal". You want to expand to where your jaws were supposed to have grown, expanding past this point could open up a whole new set of issues. 

Your tongue being caught between your molars and being bitten is because your mouth is too small to accommodate the entire width of your tongue. Completely relaxed and in proper position, the tongue should never end up caught between teeth while chewing. As you know, your jaw needs to be expanded so that this doesn't happen anymore.

To avoid damaging your tongue until you grow your jaw, you can chew more slowly. Rather than mashing the gum between your teeth slowly chew on it. 

You being 17 years old is very relevant, the younger you are the more rapidly the body will adapt to changes. 

However, being 17, I would urge that you look into the ALF appliance and if it is offered by anyone in your vicinity. It would be worth travelling for at your age as well. You are still a minor and shouldn't discount all the possible ways of having your parents insurance cover professional treatment (if they have any). 

Good luck, keep us updated!

Thank you for the comprehensive reply, it is highly appreciated.  I have never had orthodontic treatment before, so this expander will be a first.  I am replicating the headgear and expander found on this website (facepulling.com) and will be wearing this overnight for the next several months.  I am modifying the headgear to resemble the one used in the study with monkeys that is cited on this website.

Also would you recommend mastic gum to chew slowly but with a lot of force so that I can build up my bite force?

What angle would you recommend pulling the maxilla with this headgear?  Would you recommend pulling the maxilla up and forwards at 45 degrees, which is equally up and forwards, or 54 degrees, which is a bit more upwards than forwards?

Sorry for so many replies to this post, but I am unable to edit my previous posts.  Why are there two separate forces in maxillary protraction headgears, one for upward and one for forward, as opposed to just one force which pulls both up and forwards.  I have attached an image of an example of this, the black lines indicating reference lines and angles, while the colored parts represent different parts of my proposed headgear.  Would this work, applying one up and forward force to the maxilla, rather than two separate forces?

The forum has a limit on how much later you can edit posts. I will up the limit if this becomes an issuee

Aim for higher than 45 degrees. Pull up and forward always, never down. Adjust the angle every single session to where your body responds best - you'll be able to tell where you need pressure. Plato chose the hockey helmet for his device specifically because it allowed slight alterations in angle and force during a session depending on how it felt.

The reason that there are two force vectors combined to produce a third vector is because this is the only way to anchor a device on a person. The only way to have one vector of force is to have the device anchored either directly behind the maxilla (which is what pushing with the tongue accomplishes) or pulling directly up and out (which is what facepulling against an anchor accomplishes)

Even the device you have linked has two different force vectors. Once you have more than one part in the device you have more than one force vector. I do not understand your device with the spring, but if it means what i think it does: The part with the spring is a force vector which can be pointed in any direction, and combining it with the force vector of the yellow piece determines the 3rd angle which is where force will be directed. If you make the yellow part longer you will have more forward pull, if you make it shorter you will have more upward pull. So you see that you are indeed combining two force vectors into a third. 

I will not discourage your attempt to build a device, but I hope you are also practicing the tongue posture and improving it every day.  Keep us updated

Thank you for the clarification on this, it was really helpful.  I have already adopted proper tongue posture, despite it being initially very uncomfortable.  I will keep you all posted on the effect of the headgear, possibly checking in every 3-6 months to 1 year. 

I do have one final question regarding this, which is if there is any way to increase bone deposition at the midpalatal suture after the desired expansion is achieved, to possibly prevent relapse.  If Vitamin K2 MK4 is the magic it is claimed to be, could it possibly help?

MK-4 can be a powerful supplement in right contexts. But should you relapse, you will relapse because you aren't maintaining proper skull support, not because the newly formed bone is weak. Bone resorption and deposition happens on request all the time. Due to biological reasons, the skull sutures are in their equilibrium, or "rest position", at about 0,2 mm width. This is the width to which the tissue of the suture seeks to return. 

So when the mid-palatal suture is kept wider than about 0,2 mm, new bone will be formed until the sutural width returns to the 0,2mm. Likewise, when the suture is forced narrower than 0,2 mm, the surrounding bone mass will get resorpted, lessening the sutural tension until the suture can return to equilibrium. In practice, this means that when the effects of gravity are allowed to overpower the skull support (= mewing), the skull begins to collapse into itself through bone resoprtion via the sutures until it finds enough support from the musculature to stop further regression.

The skull is like a rubber band: you can stretch it wide, but without your support it won't stay wide. 

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