Over a year after getting braces, I was scheduled to have surgery to extend my lower jaw and widen my upper palette.
[Squeamish Beware:] To widen my upper palette, the bone suture along the upper palette needed to be parted. An expander, a device like a retainer with a crank to push the sides apart, was installed to control the gradual widening. By keeping the edges of the sutures just out of reach and re-widening twice a day, the bones’ efforts to re-suture themselves caused the gap to fill with new blood vessels and, eventually, new bone. Extending the lower jaw was another issue.
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