Hi,
I had jaw surgery to correct my underbite 3 years ago at age 23 (which
was excruciatingly painful).  The surgeon broke my palate and moved my
maxilla forward and shortened my mandible.  I had a pretty bad
underbite that was very noticeable aesthetically.  I am an asian male
where underbites are common.  I've had my wisdom teeth taken out and
some premolars too.  I don't know if the surgery was messed up (it was
a military surgeon, but that probably wouldn't matter since he was
still an M.D., right?).  I read on some site that asian underbites
should be handled slightly differently from underbites in caucasian
pts, maybe this played a role?  I remember the doctor saying that he
"hoped I wouldn't slip through the cracks" when he looked at me after
surgery and I still had an underbite.  I guess lying down with my head
tilted up in the operating room and my muscles completely relaxed the
underbite had been corrected.  Anyway, while I was in braces and had
the ties/rubberbands on to keep my mandible in constant retrusion (for
like a year after the surgery) everything was fine.  A year after
surgery, I got the braces off and so the ties went too.  It has now
been about 2 years since I got my braces off and my underbite has come
back.  It actually came back pretty much right after I got the
ties/braces off.  In the military continuity of care is difficult, we
are moving around a lot so I couldn't go back to the doc and complain.
Actually, I had been transfered to several docs over the course of my
orthodontic/surgery tx due to the mobility of the military.  My
problem, it seems, is very similar to another post that was made in
this group a few years back.  So here is my problem, if I relax my
muscles, my mandible sticks forward underneeth my top teeth.  I find
that I am consistently having to contract my masseter, temporalis,
pterygoids, mylohyoid and whatever muscles in the face help in
retrusion.  I could let it relax, sure, but I dislike the way I look
from the side when I do this.  Applying this constant tension is not a
nice way to exist.  My underbite is better than what it was presurgery,
but still, after all the pain, liquid diet, losing 30 lbs, not being
able to get a good tooth brushing session in for like weeks, sore gums,
immobility, constipation (from the meds), black eyes, chipmunk swelling
(for months), etc., etc. (yes, I am your typical whining pt) I would
like to have a nice bite and a normal profile.  Plus, I can't help
thinking that all this retrusion will give me TMJ osteoarthritis or
something.  There is already a "clicking" sound and an odd feeling when
I yawn widely, like I might get lock jaw or something.  I don't know if
my jaw has grown back, or if my muscles are just very "strong" (this is
what my doctor told me a week and a half after the surgery - he was
then able to manipulate the maxillary teeth because of the broken
palate - I wish he had done a little more manipulation, haha!).  To be
honest, this problem is driving me somewhat nuts.  I don't want another
surgery.  I already have these depressions (not too bad or anything) in
my skin lining the angle of my mandible right behind my submandibular
glands where the breaks were made and I don't want to make anything
worse.  Plus, the ala of the right side of my nose is slightly crooked
now (I analyzed presurgery photos that I took right before I went
under) and overall there has been a slight widening of my nose.  Also,
I heard about a story (a friend of a friend thing) where postsurgical
infection completely destroyed her mandible.  Are there any
suggestions/comments?  Thanks a lot for reading...
gu99v25cat@hotmail.com