Surgical Orthodontic Treatment

Generally not until growth has finished, which means the late teens at the earliest and slightly later in men than in women. Operating while the jaws are still growing risks the result changing afterwards.

There is no upper limit. Adults in their thirties, forties and beyond have orthognathic surgery where there is a clear functional reason for it. More on our surgical orthodontics page.

It is major surgery under general anaesthetic with a hospital stay, so it should not be described as minor. It is also well established and routinely performed.

As with any operation there are risks, and the most discussed is altered sensation in the lip or chin, which is usually temporary but can occasionally persist. Your surgeon will go through the specific risks in your case, because those depend on which jaw is being moved and how far.

That conversation belongs with the surgeon rather than with us. Our part is the orthodontics either side of it.

That varies with what is being done and is a question for your surgeon rather than for us. A single-jaw procedure is shorter than one involving both.

What we can tell you is the shape of the day. It is carried out under general anaesthetic in hospital with an overnight stay, and you will be given the specifics at your surgical consultation.

Less than most people expect, because the nerves supplying the area are affected by the surgery itself. Numbness is more common than pain in the first weeks.

What people do find difficult is swelling, which peaks in the first few days, and a soft or liquid diet for several weeks. Getting back to normal routine takes a few weeks, and full settling of the bite takes months.

The initial recovery is a few weeks, with swelling settling over the first month and most people back to work or school within two to four weeks depending on the procedure.

Full recovery takes longer. Sensation returns gradually over months, and the bite continues settling during the orthodontic phase that follows, which usually runs around six months.

It is a long commitment. Two to three years from start to finish, including twelve to eighteen months of braces beforehand, the operation itself, and around six months of orthodontics afterwards.

The braces stage often makes the bite look worse before it looks better, which surprises people who were not warned. There is a hospital stay, weeks of recovery, and the risk of altered lip or chin sensation.

Those are real and worth weighing properly. For a genuine skeletal discrepancy it remains the only approach that changes the underlying problem.

For the right case, yes, and patients who need it are generally glad they did it. For the wrong case it is a great deal to go through for a result braces alone could have achieved.

That is why the assessment matters more here than anywhere else. Where the reasons are functional, difficulty chewing, uneven wear, jaw joint pain or sleep-related breathing problems, the argument is strong. Where the motivation is purely appearance, it deserves a much longer conversation.

We will tell you honestly which category your case falls into.