What Do I Need To Make My Poor Lower Jaw Look Better?

Q: Dr. Eppley, I am interested in jaw augmentation for my short lower face. What can be done?

A:Thank you for your inquiry and sending your pictures. You have a fairly severe chin deficiency due an underdeveloped lower jaw. Ideally you should have lower jaw surgery first before any efforts are done from an aesthetic standpoint to create a better chin/jaw foundation. But I will assume for now you are aware of the ideal initial approach of jaw surgery and are bypassing that and are just going to do the best with the shape of the jaw the way it is now.

In that regard the best approach is a maximum sliding genioplasty for the chin. Whether you should try and add on jaw implants with the sliding genioplasty is a subject up for further discussion. Normally I would do some computer imaging to demonstrate some of these potential lower facial changes but your facial hair creates enough distortions that it partially obscures those potential changes.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis, Indiana