Hi everyone,

I read your comments. I am 37 and have corrective jaw surgery scheduled for Jan 2008. The left side of my lower jaw is longer than the right and my upper plate is canted so it is not level. An unusual situation for sure. This condition resulted from an unexplained growth spurt when I was 24 years old, in which my facial features changed, my feet grew from 10 1/2 to 12's, I grew 2 inches taller, etc, etc. The surgery to fix my jaw is called orthognathic surgery which is performed by a maxofacial surgeon. In order to fix my particular problem the doctor has to cut my upper jaw in 4 places and lower jaw in 4 places, level it and ensure that all my teeth align correctly, then re-position my chin to complete the process. I will have my jaw wired shut for at least 6 weeks and be on a liquid diet. Definitely does not sound like fun but based on the photos of prior patients with similar issues, the surgery should correct most of my TMJ, bite, and teeth alignment problems. I was just going to deal with it for the rest of my life when I decided to just check into my options. I had braces on my teeth as a teenager which gave me a perfect smile. My condition made my teeth crooked again, worse than before. I went to my local orthodontist to see what could be done. He told me that he could re-align my teeth but that if I really wanted to have a great smile again I should see a surgeon. He recommended me to the top maxofacial surgeon in my part of the state. I have been in braces for one year, will have the surgery, then one more year of braces to complete the process. Yes it is a long arduous process but I am excited to be half way through it. Those of you with a similar condition should definitely check into it. It is a pricey surgery which will require at least 3-5 days in the hospital then home recovery for at least a month more. Luckily my medical insurance is covering most of it as jaw assymetry is considered a medically necessary procedure to correct. I will post an update after it is done and let you know how it went. I hope this post has helped someone.

Wow... after surfing the net so long to find why i have an asymmetrical face, i have found people who know what i'm talking about. I have told my sister and my mom and they both tell me i'm crazy, even when i'm showing them a picture of me from the front, with a line drawn down the middle, where it's OBVIOUS my chin isn't aligned with the midline of my face, and that my whole mouth is skewed. I have noticed that i look more crooked with the two mirrors, i look SO ugly! and curiously enough, most people tell me i'm cute, that i should be a model even, which i know i couldn't possibly be, but at least THEY think it, so i guess i don't look ugly to them.

My boyfriend is the only person that has told me that my face is crooked. He makes a big fuss over how different i look when he looks at me in a mirror. He says i look ugly in the mirror, but that when he looks at me in 'real life' i don't look so crooked. The explanation someone gave here about the mirrors and one being used to looking at faces in some way was very good. Although i have never seen anyone in a reflection and thought they looked strange...

I have been thinking about getting braces or something to align my bite, so that i don't have to bite to the left anymore. But i don't know if it's just a matter of my teeth being a little skewed or if one side of my jaw is longer than the other. It is very annoying though... i'm very self concious about pictures or video, i am always afraid that people are noticing when i'm talking to them too. I always tilt my head or turn it so it's 3/4 in the photo, never straight on the front, cause then my asymmetrical features are more obvious.
I recently had all of my wisdom teeth pulled out, and my doctor told me that indeed, my jaw is pulling the lower part of my face to the left. That she could do a little surgery and move my chin bone a little to the right... I didn't go for it as it was just to camouflage the problem, plus, it's not only my chin, my whole mouth is skewed. So, I'm pretty afraid to go to doctors and get my ugly face screwed up even more.

Airrun, let us know how your surgery goes.

Im surprised to find other people with the same problem as me with a quick google search. During High School, I had a feeling that I wasn't the same as everyone else, I had troubles getting a girlfirend and some people seemed to act very strange around me. Sometimes I would stare at my face in the mirror, trying to find something wrong with it, but everytime I managed to convince myself that there was nothing wrong. I had a tug-of-war with myself for several years...yes my face is asymmetyrical, no it isnt etc.

It wasnt until I was getting braces put on that the dentist pointed out tyhat I had an asymmetrical face. He used the reference "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde." I was devestated, my worst fears were true.

Everyday I'm tormented by this problem. I avoid looking at people straight on, pictures, and during conversation I wonder if theyre thinking to themselves how ugly I am. Even when Im at dinner my mother will sometimes look at me and I wonder if she's disapointed that her son had to be so ugly...

Somedays I forget about it, others it nags at me constantly. Its very difficult being ugly in a world that prizes superficial looks so very highly.

I can totally feel your pain, Ares.
I haven't had trouble getting a boyfriend, but he does make fun of me sometimes. And makes a big fuss over how much weirder i look in a mirror's reflection. It really gets me down. Sometimes i get so depressed that i have even told him to get a pretty girl to be his girlfriend, i just feel so damn ugly sometimes.
Some other days i think i look cute, in spite of not being normally symmetrical. I'm sure you do too. Being a little crooked does not make us ugly! sure, we could look better i guess, but i think we make this flaw of ours even bigger, people probably don't notice as much.
Sometimes i forget too, sometimes i look in the mirror and i think that i don't look that crooked, but at others, i really feel like a picasso painting...

So, if you don't mind me asking, what do you think is the cause of your asymmetrical face? or did the dr. tell you why? Are the braces going to help fix that?

I'm 24 right now and I never noticed this looking into mirrors until I got an apartment with a 3 way mirror, meaning the part in the middle is regular and the sides come out. My left side looks worse than my right. But I only think about it when I have that kind of mirror or I hold up a mirror in my hands to look at the side of my head. My hair has a wave and one the better looking side goes back and the worse looking side it comes forward.

Can you guys post up photos here??? That would be best...I'll do it too..

can you guys post pics??? Instead of talking let's see what the fuss is about.

If you upload your photos to photobucket.com which is free, they give you a code to use for message boards.

this pic is my good side





this pic below is my bad side






what do you guys think?

I think you look good from both sides. True, your hair does a weird thing on your left side, lol, but it doesn't look 'bad'. Maybe you just need to pay more attention to it when you're combing your hair... like you have to MAKE IT go up too with some hair product or something.
I would like to see pictures to see what everyone is talkinga about too, but as far as I am concerned... well, I'm very self conscious to post pictures of myself. What if someone i know sees me? lol
Plus, kirrabeachbum, you don't look asymmetric at all... just your hair. I wouldn't complain so much if it was just my hair, which is kind of funnier on my left side too. I have some of those 'little baby hairs' along my hair line, the kind that never grow past 2 inches or something like that. It's a lot more noticeable and a lot thinner on my left side, so i look kind of bald if i pull my hair back. And, as i said, yours looks like all it needs is a little spray or mousse to make it stand up like on your right side.

I would just post your photos. I don't care if anyone finds me on here that I know, and if they do, then they're obviosuly here for a reason other than just for kicks.

So yea post your photo! Everyone else should too. I bet you it's just mental or something to do with your eyes when you and only you take the time to look in the mirror even thought the perceived asymmetry is not there. You probably have never noticed other people who hav ea crappy side totheir face right?

As far as my photos go...I'll post another pair soon as well that perhaps shows it more...my hair is wavy and just does taht...when i put stuff in the hair it looks too thick...=)

lol. I haven't noticed anything weird about the faces of people I know, unless they're overly WEIRD, i do know a couple of people that do have strange faces.
I'm sure my asymmetry isn't just 'perceived'. I've even measured and have drawn lines on pictures of myself. If i draw a straight line down the middle of my face, it doesn't connect with the midle of my mouth or chin.
I'm considering posting some pics... but i have to take them first.
Seems like you don't have the same problem as the rest of us, kirrabeach, from those pictures you look totally normal and symmetrical. Maybe post one from the front of your face?

the front of my face looks fine...although my nose is slightly crooked...but that's not uncommon...i'll post 2 more photos holding the camera instead of in front of a mirror and that exacerbates it I think...

First one is me from straight up. I realize my nose is slightly crooked to my left, I think.





This is my good side below.





And finally, my bad side. I think my hair, jaw, and nose look funny. If anything, def. my nose and hair though.

See? you're perfectly normal!!! you DO NOT have the same issues as the rest of us. Well, I'm not sure if everyone else has the same issue as me, maybe i'm the only weird faced person here.
I analyzed your photo, and according to me, the thing that's just a wee bit off is your chin and mouth. But it's a LITTLE bit, barely perceivable. The midlines of those are a little to your right. But i can't stress this enough, A LITTLE!!
I don't think you look funny from your 'bad side'. lol. As probably your mother would say: you look fine!!

Anyways, just yesterday i was experimenting with the whole theory of one being used to seeing oneself in the mirror, and when you see the image reversed you think you look weird.
I'm used to the image i see of myself in the mirror... i taped a little video of myself, and sad to say, i noticed how crooked i look! ugh... it makes me so self conscious. Then i put the camera in fron of the mirror, as to see the reflection of the video, in which i think i look more 'normal', still a little croocked, but far less noticeable.

okay 3 things...

1. Explain your mirror theory again? I didn't quite follow that..

2. Check out my myspace. www.myspace.com/acolt

Watch one of the youtube videos of me on my main page which anyone can see and see how it looks in live action as opposed to pics. that is when it shows up the most.

3. And post your pics! That's the only way for others to see..trust me. =)

Hey! I’m really glad that I found this forum, it has helped me so much to find out that I’m not alone. I, too, have very asymmetrical face. Like most of you I also found out my crookedness with two mirrors and awful pictures. when I take pictures of myself from the “good side” I think I look cute and very normal but from the other side I look like a monster , I mean it’s seems that those face half’s could not possibly belong to the same person, they look so totally different. And the worst part is that I don’t know which side I should base my identity to. Am I ugly monster or a normal looking girl? Things you guys have written here sound so familiar and I feel I could’ve wrote them myself.
And what is it with this? I’ve notice it too.
“Then i put the camera in front of the mirror, as to see the reflection of the video, in which i think i look more 'normal', still a little croocked, but far less noticeable.”
And by the way ,kirrabeachbum , you really don’t have the same problem that the rest of us. You look cute. I, look like a monster.

Maybe we should post picture of our faces, maybe so that eyes would be covered or something to make them less recognizable.

Let's try to hang on, at least we're not alone

Hi everyone! Like crooked above and others here, I too was glad to find this forum. I face the same asymmetry problems that you guys have described. Thing is though, it's not just my face that's obviously asymmetrical. It's my whole body.

When I was a kid, I noticed that my ears were weird. One sticks out more than the other, and even feels softer. I also noticed that my smile was crooked. At age 16, a friend commented on how my chin was bigger on one side compared to the other. I never noticed it, and even after this comment, I remained oblivious to it whenver I looked in the mirror (I just saw my weird ears and how one side of my lower lip seemed *slightly* bigger than the other side).

At age 19, I fooled around with a camera and took a close-up pic of my face...and that's when it struck me. What came out was this blatantly asymmetrical face that I didn't see in the mirror. It looked like my right side was bloated, and in contrast, someone had let the air out of my left side! That night sort of squeezed every ounce of security out of me (and made me kind of anti-social, I must admit).

From then on I started noticing all the things I never noticed (or never cared). One side of my back (left) is flatter than the other (also pointed out by a friend who patted me on the back, and also ignored by me initially). My right leg is shorter than my left. When I feel the top of my skull, the left side is flat, and the right more rounded. Even facial hair grows at a faster rate on the right side.

Just a moment ago (after reading this forum), I toyed around with google and found something called "Hemihypertrophy". My symptoms seem to perfectly match what was being described, including having a curved spine (a condition called "scoliosis"), which is why one side of my back's flatter than the other side, apparently caused by different leg lengths.

I admit it freaked me out, but I realize I've grown up healthily to reach 25, and if any problems were to occur, at least one would have already. Live with it I guess?

On a side note though: I've had people saying how "hot" I look when they see my pictures which I, of course, take from one side. Go figure . Wonder what they'd say if they saw my face up front though...

Hey,

Can you guys post some pictures? I hear what you're saying but I'd like to see what you're talking about b/c there is only so much you can say to describe them, right?

=)

Hey,

Can you guys post some pictures? I hear what you're saying but I'd like to see what you're talking about b/c there is only so much you can say to describe them, right?

=)

Hey guys! how come i hadn't seen that there where new replies until now? I checked almost everyday! lol
I'm a bit traumatized by this subject and was thrilled to find a forum for it too.
I think I'll post a picture where you can only see my nose and mouth. That will give you enough of an idea, without showing my whole face. I'm embarrased!!!
It would make me feel better if any of you really crooked people would post too, haha. Kirrabeachbum doesn't count cause he looks perfectly normal.

By the way, Kirrabeachbum:
1.About the mirror theory, someone said a lot about it earlier in this thread. It's something about how you're used to seeing yourself, or anyone for that matter from one perspective. The human brain always tries to 'round things up' so it makes things appear symmetrical even if they aren't all that... Anyway, when you flip the image, if there's a slight curve to one side, and you never notice it on the 'normal perspective' on the flipped one it stands out a lot. I'm bad at explaining things, haha, i hope i made myself clear... Anyway, i think this is why it freaks me out more of how I look when i see myself in videos...
2. I followed your link to myspace and a video came up, but it had pictures...

ok, here's a link to a picture.

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh312/b ianitas9/Photo-45.jpg

I drew a vertical and horizontal line to show you what should be aligned where...

Hope more of you post pics as well.