jaw cracking .

[chrisl]

hi everyone .

im a 43 year old mate , living in england and i have a class 3 underbite .
im one of the lucky few that has managed to get treated on the nhs or theres no way i could of gone down this road .
ive had fixed braces since september 2011 and my teeth have now moved that much that i have one bite point and thats it ,im struggling to chew any food.
i was at the hospital yesterday and they installed bands on my top back teeth so hopefully i will be having surgery soon .

anyway ........ what i would like to ask is does anyone else have a cracking jaw which happens after opening wide and then closing again , its got that bad the dentist could hear it ....... and if so will the underbite surgery cure this or not.


cheers

chris

[chrisl]

overwhelmed by the response .....such a great forum !!!!

[mzkimx3]

Just viewed this post and i have had all the symptoms you had and i had overbit surgery as well. if you look at my blog back in april i had my lower jaw cut and moved forward 8 mm and the cracking had since stopped. My dentist, ortho and also my boyfriend could hear it and i think i made it worse because without thinking i would crack it as well. let me kno if you have any questions ill be happy to answer what i can

[oimysizex]

Hello, the cracking you can hear is called 'TMJ'. I have the same and its probably the braces that has caused the cracking to occur because your teeth are moving.
I'm having jaw surgery also, but I'm having it BECAUSE of the 'cracking/TMJ' and my jaw shifts to the right so my face isn't symmetrical.

I was WARNED that the surgery could make the problem worse however, it may entirely go. My orthodontist said to me today if my TMJ/cracking/popping gets worse she can make me a lower soft splint that can go on top of my brace to help the pain and cracking.
If you tell your orthodontist what is happening, im sure he/she will help :)