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cellardoor

tongue thrust

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by
cellardoor
, 12-11-2008 at 01:56 PM (442 Views)
In a recent thread on this forum, I learned about tongue thursting. After doing a bit of googling, I'm pretty certain I have this (and it's why I have such a severe open bite).

Basically, my tongue is always between my top and bottom teeth, which puts pressure on my teeth and moves them, causing the open bite. I also learned that there are ways to correct this and have proper swallowing habits.

The main concern I have is that once my braces are removed, my teeth will form an open bite again because my tongue is still going to be putting all that pressure against my teeth.

My next adjustment is on Wednesday, so I'm going to ask my ortho about this and see what I can do to fix it. I'd hate to have all this time and money I've invested into orthodonitc treatment come undone.
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  1. Sunny's Avatar
    It does sound like you have a tongue thrust and you're right that it will undo your orthodontic work. The tongue should rest near the roof of the mouth, and not between the teeth or hard against the teeth. Swallowing is the best way to check for the thrust. When you swallow your tongue should go to the top of your mouth, if it goes forward to your teeth, this is the thrusting action. We swallow thousands of times a day (an automatic action that we don't consciously control), so this is when the tongue will affect the placement of the teeth.

    It's surprising your ortho isn't aware of it, as usually they can pick it out when talking to you, and different types of bites, like open bites, are regularly the result of tongue thrust action.

    There are appliances that can retrain your tongue and also speech work that can be done. This is something that can be fixed with work by you, so please make sure you talk with your orthodontist about this and then about the options to correct the thrust.

    Good luck with your adjustment on Wednesday and please let us know how it goes!
  2. cellardoor's Avatar
    Thanks for the info sunny! i've never realized these things before, but now that i think about it, my tongue does go to the front of my mouth when i swallow. i'll be sure to ask my ortho next week and let you guys know what he says.