From a cost perspective, it was much cheaper to do my Invisalign + DOME + MARPE + Bollard Elastics (which worked btw) than it would cost to do even a ...

@bdurwood Also, would you say that you had a Class I, II, or III occlusion to begin with?

@bdurwood Just curious, could you elaborate on what it was about your procedure that didn't turn out well, functionally and aesthetically? In my ca...

It's been quite apparent to me that my nasolabial/paranasal area of my face has become more prominent (kind of like a lion or any other cat). Of cour...

@grow-your-face Funny, Ron Ead asked me the same question within his youtube comments. Here is my reply: reply to @Jaw Hacks I see what you mean...

FYI, this is how it looks now:

My breathing is slowly getting better in my left nostril (which had usually been rather blocked before); my right nostril was already fine. The expa...

See this post I made about this topic. Within it, there is an external link as well that goes into depth about muscle strength and facial features:

For reference, here is CBCT snapshot from about a year ago of most of my face (left side). You can see why I need much transverse expansion, as well ...

Happy 4th everybody! Here's where I am with the turning; I'm less than halfway through but you can already see a ton of transverse progress. In th...

@apollo Yes! It's bigger now of course; I'll eventually be putting more pictures up. That's one of the advantages of DOME -- not having to wait for ...

Ok, DOME is done, and the turning hs begun (total of 1.5mm so far). I should be able to begin the elastics very soon; you can see part of the bollard...

@apollo No, there won't be any surgical pterygomaxillary disjunction; just the midpalatal and buttress releases, like you said. My ortho said to exp...

@apollo There are hooks on the molar bands (see attached photo), and thankfully the screws are indeed engaged bicortically (this was something my orth...

Just as an amusing side note, anyone remember "Mr. Peepers" from Saturday Night Live?

There is one advantage to having a prominent chin, that I can think of. Having such minimizes how far one can hyper-extend one's neck (with head tuck...

Ok, that does make sense. Thanks for the input!

Now I'm wondering what's still attached that becomes separated by a downfracture

I actually am in the situation in which I already had DJS (including segmentation to widen palate) but for whatever reason, although it's better, I st...

FYI, I've never used more than an active plate (sideways only), but I DO know that with the Y-plate, you'll want to be extremely slow and careful with...

(see site for picture): NITI PALATAL EXPANDER The appliance was introduced by Wendell. V, Arndt in the year 1993. It is a tandem-loop, nickel titan...

@le_fort_or_bust I should also ask, now that I'm looking at your bite moulds from the same thread, do you require a retainer to keep your bite as it...

@le_fort_or_bust Looking at your cephalogram from this thread: I can tell that just having a Lefort I advancement of maybe 4-5 mm would help wi...

@le_fort_or_bust Technically, yes. I wonder why you've been turned down for such a procedure. As long as your anterior nasal spine is behind the...

@agendum I suppose that could work on someone like me who still has the plates and screws under and to the side of the piriform rim (as a result of ...

I know less about that, but I suspect that it would be harder to move/grow/remodel than the upper

@mr-mewing I suppose so, but I'm still thinking the main issue with the relapse is not so much the upper jaw retruding, as it was the lower jaw grow...

Yes, it did in my case, though mine is a class III. Not sure if the upper jaw moved back some or if the lower jaw grew some afterward (I was 19 at th...

Ok, after much searching on this topic, I came across this video, featuring Dr. Marianna Evans: At roughly the 1hr 5min mark, she talks about how...

Regarding bimax or even lefort-1-only, I'm kind of between a rock and hard place in my situation. I live in Western MD, and I began going to a coupl...

The way I see it, pretty much all craniofacial issues never result in the forward positioning of the midface too much relative to the forehead. In ot...

@tony721 After seeing the periodontist, I see that I cannot upright my lower incisors since the bone is too thin. I'm still going to pursue other o...

@tony721 First they (doctors) want me to go to periodontist to make sure my gums/bone are ok to get braces. Then they want to do the same thing you...

@tony721 Good to hear that you're moving forward with the next operation! Out of curiosity, was the partially-remaining screw in the maxilla or ma...

I do know that the second-most well known guru for MSE in the U.S. is Dr. Peter Ngan at WVU, and he collaborated with Dr. Won Moon vis-a-vis MSE resea...

Not sure about the mandible, but I would think that the Y-plate, using the front screw, wouldn't help with breathing, since it would just make your ma...

I researched and found the anatomical name for this part of the skull: occipitomastoid suture

@mr-mewing I don't know the answers to either of those, but in my case my lower jaw is already plenty big. I already had removed my wisdom teeth so...

@thebeastpanda I would think that 14 years old, while too old for the tooth-anchored expanders (which one of my children actually used at age 9), is...

@apollo Maybe that's what I'm thinking of; perhaps there are no actual research papers on the topic.

@thebeastpanda I think at age 14, you'd have quite a good chance of achieving both. I'm no expert but I'm basing thjd on what I've read

@mr-mewing I know I've read articles from the MSE gurus (Won Moon, Peter Ngan, etc.) in the past about how using a facemask (a.k.a. reverse headgear...

I should add that my lower molars do not tip outward; they actually tip inward, meaning that skeletally, my mandible is even wider than a 50mm IMW wou...

I would say, if you're not worried about stability and want to keep all of your gains, to simply keep wearing the expander that you already have as a ...

I do have experience with having one Schwartz expander after another. They are just the simple active plate expanders. I'm not sure I can answer al...

@balazs2001 It just had one screw to expand sideways. Expanded at about 1 turn every 3 days

@balazs2001 Yes (but just the basic Schwartz expander). The first one, I was able to get something like 5 mm total, of which maybe half was molar t...

@balazs2001 What you'll have to remember is that after perhaps 4, 5, or 6 mm of expansion of the appliance, you're going to have to order another on...

I'd say falim is slightly harder, and the pieces are bigger than mastic. It's also cheaper, but more bland tasting.

Something else occurred to me; even if you could pull the zygomatic arches and maxilla forward, wouldn't the pterygoid junction at the posterior of th...