A wide and strong jaw can make you look dominant and enhance your facial harmony. So, what surgery can you get to make your jaw wider?
BiMax or double jaw surgery is a procedure that makes your jaw wider. You can also get MSDO surgery or jaw implants to enhance your jaw. You could also try non-surgical options like chewing gum and mewing to achieve a wider jaw.
Surgical Options to Expand Your Jaw
BiMax (Double Jaw Surgery)
BiMax, also called double jaw surgery, is a procedure that can correct a receding jawline, a weak chin, a pronounced overbite, and facial asymmetry.
Another bonus is that it opens your airways, improving the airflow between your tongue and nose. It can help people who snore, have sleep apnea, etc.
For instance, surgery to enhance the upper jaw significantly increases the upper airway (Rosário et al., 2016). Double jaw surgery includes your upper jaw, meaning it can increase your airways as well if needed.
Typically, most people have to wear braces for 12-18 months before the procedure. A surgeon moves and/or enlarges the maxilla and mandible to perform BiMax surgery.
The exact technique used will depend on your needs. Usually, surgeons make incisions in the mouth, but they may have to make small incisions in your cheeks as well.
The surgeon will then cut and reposition a jawbone. Usually, they will also add implants to make your jaw wider. The surgeon will then repeat the process as needed to the other jawbone.
The surgeon will use titanium plates and screws to keep the jawbones in place. They also usually use wires and elastic bands to keep the jaw in the new position.
Recovery can take a while. It may take 3-8 weeks before you can go back to school or work. Most people fully recover after 12 weeks.
Jaw Implants
Some patients may not need double jaw surgery to enhance their jawline. You can make the jaw wider by simply getting jaw implants if you only need to add volume to your mandible.
Jaw implants help give your jawline a more pronounced look. The good thing about jaw implants is that you can usually ask a surgeon to remove them or change them if you are not happy with the outcome.
Chin Enhancement Surgery and Genioplasty
In some cases, it might be your chin that brings your jawline down. A weak chin can make your jawline look weak. Therefore, you can get chin enhancement or genioplasty surgery to improve your chin, jawline, and neck contours.
Usually, chin enhancement or implant surgery involves putting an implant on your chin bone. It will augment your chin’s size and shape while enhancing the balance between the lower half of your face.
The other way is to get genioplasty. A surgeon will cut your jaw bone then move it forward to increase projection. A surgeon will then use plates and screws to keep your jaw bone in place. Genioplasty is usually more aggressive than chin implants.
MSDO
MSDO stands for mandibular symphyseal distraction osteogenesis. It is an alternative way to expand your mandible.
It is a safe and efficient way to increase your mandibular arch (İşeri et al., 2005). If you are familiar with MSE (maxillary skeletal expander), MSDO works similarly.
An orthognathic surgeon will cut the midline suture of your mandible. A distractor, which is like MSE, gets inserted across the cut.
You will turn the distractor daily for several weeks to expand your jaw. It will also widen your bite.
MSDO often complements MSE. Since MSE expands your maxilla, MSDO can expand your mandible as well.
In some cases, you may have to get MSDO after aggressive MSE expansion and vice versa. When you only expand either the upper or lower jaw, there is a chance you can get a crossbite. However, you wouldn’t do both simultaneously because there’s a chance the MSE could fail or give you asymmetrical expansion.
But either way, MSDO can expand your lower jaw, offsetting the misalignment.
Non-Surgical Options
If you are not sure about getting surgery, you can try out a few non-surgical options first. Remember that it will take longer for you to see results. You could also do these to enhance your face after you fully heal from the surgeries above.
Chewing Gum
We use our masseter muscles to chew food. However, our masseter muscles are often small and weak since we eat soft food because of our modern diet.
Most food that we eat does not require much chewing, and we often do not chew our food enough. For instance, we should chew our food down to a paste (which you will learn when you mew), but we usually chew our food a few times then swallow.
If you chew more frequently and have a “hard” diet, your masseter muscles will grow and increase your jaw size. Studies show that people who had hard diets had larger mandibles than those with soft diets (Ruff et al., 2011).
Therefore, you need to chew more frequently and with more force. However, it is not easy for us to adopt a harder diet since soft carbohydrate foods are everywhere.
Luckily, you can still chew your way to a better jawline by chewing gum. Ideally, it would be best if you opt for sugar-free chewing gum. Mastic gum is an excellent choice, especially since it has antioxidants.
However, it would be best if you were careful not to overwork your jaw. You can start by chewing for 10 minutes, then take a break. You can chew gum again after a few hours.
You can slowly increase how long you chew gum as your masseter muscles get stronger. It is also important to remember to avoid aggressive gum chewing.
Once your jaw feels tired or achy, you should stop. Chewing gum for 10-20 minutes a day may be enough for most people.
Click here to learn more about how chewing can enhance your jawline.
Mewing
Another excellent way to increase your jaw size is to try mewing. Mewing corrects your jaw, tongue, and mouth posture. When you mew consistently and properly, you can see many enhancements in your face. When you have good mouth, tongue, and jaw posture, you stimulate your facial bones to grow or remodel a certain way.
For instance, the correct tongue posture is to rest your tongue flat on your palate. The pressure from your tongue encourages your midface to move up and forward. Mewing also involves chewing a certain way, swallowing correctly, etc., which can help enhance your jaw. This is effective and can move bone because it’s done 24/7, unlike any other exercise, which is only done for a few minutes tops.
Most mouth-breathers do the opposite of mewing, which leads to a receded jaw and a weak chin. The mewing technique encourages you to use your nose to breathe.
If you want to try mewing to enhance your jaw, you should focus on using the hyoid muscles to push up your jaw. Consistently mewing throughout the day will also help you see visible results.
Additionally, it would be best if you focused on pushing your tongue up and forward on your palate. It helps the antagonist muscles push forward on your lower jaw.
To learn more about mewing to enhance your lower jaw, click here.
If you want to see faster results, it would be ideal to try both mewing and chewing gum.
It is also important to note that there is a proper way to chew when you mew. It would be best if you only used your jaw and teeth to chew, not your cheeks. You can also move the gum or food around with your tongue.
It would help if you used both sides of your teeth and jaw to make sure your jawline grows evenly. It would help if you also kept your lips shut while you chew.
You can click here to learn more about chewing correctly when you mew or just visit our ultimate mewing guide.
