How Common Are Jaw Deformities?

[Eroica]

Maybe there's just something in the water here in the UK, but a HUGE % of people here have jaw abnormalities... very few people have "ideal" jaw positioning in profile.

I don't buy this stuff about "only 5% of the population are candidates for orthognathic surgery" that I've heard spouted before. That's BS. Maybe only 5% of the population have notably severe bite deformities. The percentage of people overall with mild/moderate class II or class III profiles is substantially higher. Combined, I'd be inclined to say they are more common than Class I profiles by a good bit.

[stevek216]

I think jaw "extremes" are really common, but most of them don't interfere with function or cause other problems so they're not considered candidates for orthognathic surgery.  If I had to guess,  I'd say those pursuing orthognathic surgery just for aesthetics aren't counted in the "candidate" pool, even though they'll certainly benefit from the procedure.

[Heavyweight]

I think there is something about British people in particular. It's probably a combination of diet, genetics, and lifestyle.

[Eroica]

Not to start sounding like I'm stereotyping etc... but there are ethnic/national tendencies toward certain jaw abnormalities. Like, I've noticed black people are really prone to the so-called "long face syndrome", much more than caucasians or Asians. Blacks naturally have a steeper occlusal plane, longer maxilla and greater facial convexity to begin with, so extreme forms of this facial type are more commonly encountered.

[stevek216]

Not to start sounding like I'm stereotyping etc... but there are ethnic/national tendencies toward certain jaw abnormalities. Like, I've noticed black people are really prone to the so-called "long face syndrome", much more than caucasians or Asians. Blacks naturally have a steeper occlusal plane, longer maxilla and greater facial convexity to begin with, so extreme forms of this facial type are more commonly encountered.

I don't think that's stereotyping, it's basically the same thing as saying that ethnic groups share common features.  I know Asian people are a lot more prone to having underbites, because they tend to have flatter faces.

[Eroica]

Yes, exactly. At the same time Europeans and other caucasians are prone to bimax retrusion because we tend to have much more retrusive jaws to begin with (whereas other races tend to have a greater degree of bimax protrusion)

[stupidjaws]

In Italy its really rare. I've developed an eye on this and I could recognize the mildest jaw issue, and I see really few

[treevernal]

In Italy its really rare. I've developed an eye on this and I could recognize the mildest jaw issue, and I see really few

That's interesting.  I'm of Italian descent on my dads side and me and my 2 sisters all get our jaw problems from him.  My mom is a class 2 but not to the extent me and my sisters are...probably because the three of us had orthodontics early on which kinda screwed things up in terms of facial growth.

[trigeminalneuralgia]

I had braces when I was 7!