“Invisalign Fixed Upper Teeth but It's Not Good if You Have an Open Bite - San Diego, CA”

Thanks for the support. I was desparate to fix my smile and ignorant to the ways of dentists versus orthos. Over that course of two years how did the ortho correct that gap of yours? Did he use bottom braces (or just braces in the back of the mouth) and a bunch of rubber bands or something like that? My upper teeth are nearly perfectly normal now, but I'd like to know how you fixed your gap. I never had the problem with my jaw, thank god, but chewing is a huge pain in the ass because I only really chew with my front teeth while my back teeth sort of mash the food that makes it past my front teeth.

Yeah I remember the huge pain the ass that chewing only in front was! After getting the braces, my front teeth looked fine after just 4 or 5 months, the bite correction sadly took much longer.

I wish I could give you a better idea how he managed the bite specifically, but he was so calm and confident about everything, I didn't realize until later how tough my case was, and didn't ask many questions at the time. What I recall, well, it probably isn't going to sound great to you, but being able to chew properly really is worth it in the long run. So what I do remember--every month the ortho adjusts the wire that runs through the brackets on your teeth. In my case, at least over the first year, I had a thicker, lower gauge wire than "usual" and in the back he would torque it so the downward pressure on the teeth felt just immense for the first few days. I remember taking massive amounts of pain killers to get through the first week after every adjustment. Plus, I'd be wearing two to four elastics/rubberbands at once, further working to pull things together. On a couple very back teeth he used something called a jig, because there wasn't enough tooth exposed to bracket them on the side. The jig went on top of the tooth and used a wire, and later an elastic, to pull it up.

Unfortunately, you're not going to be able to get braces just in the back. Everything in your mouth works together, and even if your front teeth were perfect they would still need to be stabilized as everything around them moves (but it looks from your pics like your bite is off all the way to the outer edge of your laterals--the ones next to the front two teeth). Hopefully you could just wear a good mouth guard during boxing and jiu jitsu? I have a bunch of friends in the North Park area and asked them where they went, a couple highly recommended Pulsipher Orthodontics even though it's a bit of a drive. I hope you find someone who can help.

Oh and when you do get done with all this crap, wear your retainer. I stopped wearing mine after 7 years and though my bite is fine, my front teeth shifted back towards where they were before, a little crowded and messed up looking (which is why I was here looking at Invis reviews in the first place!). So now after all that work as a teen, it looks like I'll be taking another year here at 28 to fix my screwup haha.