When I was 18 years old in High School
I then decided to go to an orthodontist for an evaluation. During my first ever orthodontist experience, he noticed my teeth had shown a few gaps. He claimed that he could correct but he could not fix my "lip incompetence" or gummy smile. I decided to go through with a mild form of invisalign to fix 2 spaces. Within 7 months, the gaps closed but I now had a slight overjet and still the gummy smile and now an even harder time closing my mouth.
After doing even more research to fix my gummy smile, I decided to undergo "lip repositioning surgery." I wish this cosmetic dentist would have told me the relapse rate of this surgery. I still had no idea why I really showed so much gums. It wasn't my "high lip" when smiling. It was my jaw. Not knowing that, my smile looked so forced and fake that my teeth barely even showed. Three thousand dollars and 1 year later my lip repositioning surgery relapsed and I was back with the same gummy smile.
After lip repositioning surgery.
My new smile, barely showing my teeth.
Next, I started to research botox which would essentially do the same as the lip repositioning surgery (I suggest botox over that surgery any day). Botox works for about a month if I am not fulling smiling and laughing. Still this is not a permanent fix and it's about $60 every 6 months.
More research for 2 years has led me to finally fix my long upper jaw and lip incompetence. I have a narrow palate (I suspect from the invisalign treatment early on) and show a lot of black in my buccal corridors along with severe overcrowding due to shifting teeth on the bottom of my mouth which has made my lower jaw also narrow. First I will widen my upper jaw and fix lower crowding with braces. This will widen my smile to show more teeth and hopefully disguise some of my gumminess when smiling.
My mouth closed..receding chin and lip incompetence
I am going to see 4 orthodontics and 4 oral surgeons to get the best possible opinion for jaw surgery. Next, I am going to train myself through orofacial myofunctional therapy to keep my lips closed at rest and breath through my nose. I am trying now but my tongue barely has enough room to stay at the roof of my mouth with my teeth together; therefore, I keep my teeth apart slightly.
I also hope that this will move both my jaws up slightly, but after reading minimal research, this is not really proven. However, once I can successfully close my lips with proper tongue placement, without having to think about it, I will look into a sliding genioplasty since I have a receding chin when closing my lips and mouth.
I have taken before pictures of my journey along the way and will blog my journey from here on out living with VME, to improve my quality life, and to finally fix the root cause not just the symptom of my long narrow face.
