What happened to my face? Jowls? Face fat gain? Muscle tension? Something else? (Photo)

Invisalign should not change the appearance of the jawline. Usually that is something much more invasive like a BSSO/Lefort/genioplasty (procedures to change the bony architecture of the face). There may be some other potential explanation like weight loss/gain, severe stress, pregnancy or something along those lines. Sometimes it can just be early signs of aging if you really carefully analyze the face. I recommend seeing a board-certified plastic surgeon (American Board of Plastic Surgery). Ideally, this surgeon has also completed an accredited aesthetic fellowship (The Aesthetic Society).

Thank you for your question and sharing your photographs. The pretreatment image shows stronger volume of the masseter muscles, which typically impacts, to some degree, the contour further forward along the jawline.
If you had botulinum toxin treatment, open bracket, Botox, or equivalent, close bracket, to the masseter muscles, they are the most likely explanation for your concerns of slight laxity along the jawline. You can just let the muscle restore its volume, and the jawline contour is likely to return to normal.
It is also possible that the use of masseter muscles has decreased because of the Invisalign treatment. In general, people that suffer with bruxism (grinding the teeth during sleep), overdevelop their masseter muscles, and established treatment is to use mouth guards, which have some similarities with Invisalign treatment. In order to decrease the activity of the muscles.

It is not likely that your Invisalign dental procedure influenced your facial changes. Judging from the photos you have presented, it looks like perhaps you have gained a little bit of weight in your face? Or this could simply be a different focal length of the camera lens? Regardless of lenses or dental procedures, time itself does change how we look due to the normal gravitational descent of facial subcutaneous tissues can give you the appearance of looking a bit older, and in the lower face, fuller and more bulky. This combination of visual cues can lead you to believe that your face is falling, which it does over time, but slowly. There are certain non-surgical things that can be done for patients in their 30s and 40s, but after this age, generally surgery is the best solution because it helps to physically lift the structures that fall.

When you're younger, surgical interventions may not always be the preferred approach. Instead, rebalancing your facial features with fillers or botox to realign muscles can be a more suitable option.

Hi! First of all, I would note that what you are seeing is extremely subtle and honestly could have been just what was going to happen anyway as you aged, regardless of the invisalign. Nonetheless, the next thing is that people often are not aware of (people as in both patients, dentists, doctors) that manipulation of where the teeth are set in alignment to each other, the jaw, and the lips can very much impact how your face holds tension and either activate or underactivate certain muscles that can then lead to a more "aged" appearance. For example, very commonly people who have smaller jaws/mouths do not undergo what is "proper" facial surgery, which would possibly involve jaw advancement surgery, and instead just get orthodontic surgery which often will overproject the teeth, and then the overprojection of the teeth means that the lips have to contract harder to keep the mouth closed, and this leads to the more aged appearance around the lower face/mouth region. I can't say for sure without having an exam in person and possibly reviewing your scans but that is possibly what happened?

When people see themselves in the mirror every day, they do not notice facial aging.
Facial aging happens but not enough to see it on a daily basis.
Taking pictures every six months can definitely show the aging process.
If you add some weight loss to the equation, then six months intervals can definitely show changes.
I don’t think your dental application. Had anything to do with this.
This is what happens as we go from young adults towards middle-age.
These are the changes that companies like Alargan have targeted specifically with the sale of products like Botox and Juvaderm.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom, MD