I started orthodontic treatment when I was 15. After the treatment, as the days went by, I kept getting compliments on my appearance. I think the time I received the most compliments was in my early 20s.
But I didn't wear my retainer properly, and one day I noticed that only my left canine tooth was protruding a lot, so at age 25 I had orthodontic re-treatment to move the left canine back inward... This is where the problem started.
I used to be popular wherever I went, even had someone ask for my number even though I'm a man, and everywhere I went people only complimented my looks.
But after correcting this left canine tooth, the area beside the left side of my nose began to sink in, and the skin on my left cheek began to sag.
When I looked in the mirror, I also thought something seemed off about my face, but I didn't really think it could be the orthodontic treatment. At that time I was studying hard, so I thought, 'Just study hard, wear the retainer diligently, and after the exam is over, then think about why my face looks strange. For now, focus only on studying.' So I kept wearing the retainer. That was the problem....
Every time my friends saw me, they started making comments putting down my appearance, saying my face looked funny and asking why my face was sagging. Of course, they were close friends, so it was joking around between guys.
But my face didn't originally look that way; it became like that because of a side effect, so I was really upset inside.
When I looked into it, I heard that when you're young, even if you have orthodontic treatment, the skin follows along with the dental and skeletal structure, but once you're an adult, the skin has settled and has less elasticity, so if the dental skeletal structure changes, the skin may not follow along properly, which can cause problems like nasolabial folds.
I had really high self-esteem and was living a happy life, but it feels like my life changed a lot because of a slight change in appearance.
My self-esteem dropped a lot, I became interested in plastic surgery that I had never even thought about, I developed social avoidance because I didn't want to show my changed appearance, and as I lost confidence, my personality also seems to be becoming more passive.
In the end, it went from orthodontic side effects > nasolabial fold filler > all the way to the stage of nose surgery, and I ended up coming into this community to get information about nose surgery.
I hope everyone thinks very carefully before getting orthodontic treatment.
I've already lost far too much compared with how I originally was, so I'm just going to see how far this goes.