Oral Surgery for Jaw Alignment: How It Can Improve Your Bite and Appearance

Jul 01, 2023

A misaligned jaw can affect your smile, appearance, oral and overall health. Opting to live with this issue can be quite uncomfortable. It will expose you to a myriad of health and lifestyle challenges, such as impaired speech, constant pain, inability to chew food properly, and so on.

Therefore, if you suffer from such an issue, you should strive to get the help you need to correct it. This is why individuals faced with jaw alignment issues opt to go for oral surgery near you.

Oral surgery for jaw alignment can go a long way in improving how you look and the quality of life you are living, particularly if you have been diagnosed with a jaw alignment dental issue.

But what exactly is jaw alignment surgery, and what does it entail? Let’s dive in and take a look.

What Is Jaw Alignment Surgery?

Jaw alignment surgery is also known as orthognathic surgery. It is performed to rectify any misalignment of the jaws and the teeth to improve their position and function. Jaw surgery is performed on individuals with jaw alignment issues that cannot be rectified using orthodontic treatments, such as wearing braces.

More so, you might be forced to undergo a jaw alignment surgery and still get fitted with braces before and after the procedure. This is done to ensure that misalignment disuse is resolved entirely.

Our dentist Dr. Delaney Clayton believes that for patients faced with severe jaw alignment issues, undergoing jaw alignment surgery can be a new lease on life for them. This is because our oral surgery in Clearwater for jaw realignment helps our patients acquire more beautiful-looking smiles, experience better sleep, deal with chronic pain that comes with TMJ disorders, and helps them chew and speak better.

How Does Jaw Alignment Surgery Improve Your Appearance?

Jaw alignment surgery can drastically improve your appearance. This is because it can alter the jaw position and facial structure by rectifying jaw and teeth misalignment. There are several ways this form of oral surgery near you can improve your smile and overall appearance, such as:

  • It can be performed to rectify severe bite-related dental issues or malocclusions, such as open bites that affect your smile and facial structure
  • It can also be carried out by our dentist in Clearwater to rectify and balance out facial symmetry
  • It can help ensure that your mouth and lips close as they should
  • It can also be performed to address and correct facial trauma and birth defects that affect the proper positioning of the jaw and teeth

How Does Jaw Alignment Surgery Improve Function?

Misaligned jaws make the process of chewing, biting, and swallowing food challenging. Most patients who suffer from this issue will attest to the fact that eating is quite challenging to the point that they have to avoid certain foods.

Jaw alignment surgery can rectify these bite-related issues and improve the bite function of your jaw and teeth.

Apart from this, speech is also a function of the jaw and teeth. A misaligned jaw or bite makes it difficult for an individual to pronounce words correctly and clearly. Undergoing jaw alignment surgery allows the jaw and teeth to be positioned correctly to enhance their speech function.

What to Expect During and After Jaw Alignment Surgery

Our dentist near you will perform the surgery when you are under general anesthesia, and will ideally be performed within a hospital. The oral surgeon will make incisions along the jawbone, allowing us to reposition the jawbone. This repositioning may be achieved using screws, wires, and bone plates. In some severe cases, the oral surgeon may be forced to extract bone fragments from the ribs or elsewhere to boost the jawbone.

This surgery should take about 2 to 3 hours; however, the duration of the procedure is dependent on the complexity of the case being resolved.

After the surgery, you should expect to experience some bleeding and nausea. This should subside in a few hours post-surgery. You will also experience some facial inflammation and bruising that will tend to peak on the third day of your recovery and clear off within two to three weeks.

Pain and inflammation medication will be prescribed to make you comfortable during recovery. During your recovery, you must maintain good oral hygiene, rinse your mouth with warm salty water at least three times a day, avoid strenuous activity for at least two weeks, keep off tobacco, and adhere to diet guidelines.

The recovery process should take about six weeks, with the initial two weeks being the most critical.

Contact our dental office in Clearwater today at Dental Arts – Clearwater for your scheduled oral surgery.

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