Short answer: if your mouth sticks out because your front teeth do, braces can pull it back. If the jawbone itself is the problem, braces alone have limits, and no amount of mewing or face yoga will move an adult jaw. That's also why the kids who wore shiny metal braces in grade school may have gotten a better deal than it looked at the time: their parents were paying for a long-term fix. Here's how teeth, bone, cost and insurance fit together, using real numbers from Japanese university hospitals.
The answer in 5 seconds: braces are powerful, not magic
- The shiny metal braces you remember from school are usually fixed metal braces: a small bracket glued to each tooth, with a wire that moves the teeth.
- A "protruding mouth" can come from several places: the front teeth, the bone the teeth sit in, the upper or lower jaw, or a chin that sits back. Lump them all together and you'll pick the wrong fix.
- Adults can still move teeth. But face exercises won't shift a fully grown jawbone forward or back in any big way. When the jaw mismatch is large, jaw surgery plus braces is an option. [1]
- In Japan, braces for ordinary crooked teeth or bite problems are mostly self-pay. One university hospital lists about 750,000 yen for full adult braces; another quotes roughly 800,000 to 1,000,000 yen. [1][2]
- Public insurance in Japan covers braces only in narrow cases: bite problems tied to conditions on a government list, certain teeth that fail to come in, and jaw deformities that need surgery. [3]
- For kids, "the earlier the better" isn't true. Timing depends on the case. Early treatment helps some children, but two rounds of treatment aren't always better than one. [9][10]
Bottom line: if your teeth actually need treatment, braces are money spent on a mouth you'll use for decades. But what makes it pay off isn't starting early. It's the right diagnosis, the right timing, finishing the job, and wearing your retainer.
1. What's actually sticking out?
"Protruding mouth" describes a look, not a diagnosis. Two people can have the same side profile for very different reasons.
| What's causing the look | In plain words | Usual approach |
|---|---|---|
| Front teeth tip forward | The teeth stick out | Braces |
| The bone holding the teeth sits forward | Teeth and their base stick out | Braces that pull the front teeth back, etc. |
| Upper and lower jaws are badly out of line | A jaw-structure problem | Growth-stage treatment for kids; for adults, possibly jaw surgery |
| The chin sits back | The mouth only looks forward by comparison | Check the jaw structure, other treatment if needed |
Dentists call the bone that holds your teeth the "alveolar bone." So "alveolar protrusion" just means your teeth and the bone they're planted in sit forward, so your mouth looks pushed out. Not a magic spell, just a location.
Throw everything into one "my mouth sticks out" bucket and there's nothing left to diagnose.
2. Teeth forward vs. jaw forward: why it matters
Braces work because teeth can move through the jawbone.
With the right steady pressure, the tissue and bone around a tooth rebuild themselves and the tooth slowly shifts. If forward-tipped front teeth are the main cause, the orthodontist may take out some teeth to make room, or use anchors to pull the front teeth back. Systematic reviews have looked at pulling the front teeth back as a group and at how extractions change the lips and profile. [6][7]
Adults, though, don't have jaw growth left to steer. Tohoku University Hospital explains that in adults the jaw's growth can't be guided, so treatment means lining up the teeth, plus jaw surgery when needed. [1]
That's where effort hits its limit.
Teeth move with medical force. Your whole jawbone doesn't move with willpower.
Mix those up and claims like "change where your tongue rests and your adult jaw will grow a few millimeters" start to sound believable.
3. Can mewing, face yoga or massage fix it?
Mouth and tongue exercises aren't useless. Myofunctional therapy is a real thing, used for mouth breathing, tongue habits, swallowing and keeping the lips closed.
But it is not an established way to pull an adult's front teeth or jaw back instead of braces.
A systematic review on adding myofunctional therapy to braces found only a few usable studies, a high risk of bias, and not enough evidence that it clearly helps. [8]
So this is a very real outcome:
1,000 days of mewing → jawbone: "..."
If you need function training, do function training. If your teeth need to move, move them. If it's your jaw structure, get that checked.
What matters most is not turning everything into "you just didn't try hard enough."
4. Do braces really change your side profile?
Sometimes, yes.
When the front teeth stick out a lot and treatment pulls them back, the lips and profile can change too. A systematic review comparing extraction and non-extraction treatment found the extraction group tended toward a flatter profile: lips further back and a wider angle between the nose and upper lip. [7]
But "get teeth pulled and you'll be gorgeous" is a big leap.
A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis found attractiveness ratings after braces were about 9% higher on average than for untreated people. The authors still called the clinical effect weak, and most studies had a high risk of bias. [5]
So braces are not a beauty machine.
Still, teeth and the mouth area are part of how people read a face, and treating a bite problem that genuinely needs it can remove one thing that drags the overall look down.
Think of it less as getting a new face and more as patching a bug so the whole thing looks more finished.
5. Can you trust "my profile changed so much" posts?
Be careful here.
In orthodontic research, side profiles are compared with the head held in a standardized position. Even the method of photographing people in a natural head position has been tested for how repeatable it is. [15]
Because just:
- tucking your chin a little
- stretching your neck
- pushing your chin forward a little
- moving the camera up or down
- changing the distance or lens
- tensing or relaxing your lips
can make a profile look completely different.
Chin tucked in the "before," chin pushed out in the "after," and the camera has joined the treatment team.
Before-and-after posts are fine for inspiration. If you want to know what really happened, look for: what treatment was done, how many millimeters the teeth moved, whether teeth were pulled, and whether both photos were taken the same way.
6. What were those metal braces kids wore in grade school?
Mostly fixed braces with metal brackets on the front of the teeth.
A wire runs through the brackets and moves the teeth in three dimensions. It's the standard way to line up permanent teeth, and it's still used every day. [1]
Not every kid in braces had the metal kind, though.
In the first phase for children, depending on jaw growth, where the adult teeth will come in and how the bite fits, orthodontists may use removable plates, expanders, headgear or functional appliances. Some kids then move on to full braces as a second phase once their adult teeth are in. [1]
Back then, the kid probably thought:
Why am I the only one with metal teeth?
A decade or more later it looks more like:
Teeth: lined up
Bite: fixed
Retainer: done
A big maintenance job your parents got out of the way for you.
7. How much do braces cost in Japan?
Braces are private, self-pay care in Japan, so there's no fixed national price. It depends on the appliance, how long treatment takes, extractions, anchor screws, adjustment visits, retainers and exams.
Prices published by university hospitals make it concrete:
- Okayama University Hospital: a typical adult case with metal braces over 2 years comes to about 750,000 yen in total. [2]
- Tohoku University Hospital: self-pay braces run roughly 800,000 to 1,000,000 yen in total. For children, phase one costs about 500,000 yen including exams, diagnosis and adjustments, and phase two, if needed, costs extra. [1]
These aren't national averages, just real examples hospitals have made public.
And here's the fun part about the metal.
On Okayama University Hospital's price list, metal brackets for the upper and lower teeth cost less than clear plastic or lingual (behind-the-teeth) brackets. [2]
So the shiny metal that screams "I HAVE BRACES" was actually the budget-friendly classic.
8. Does insurance cover braces in Japan?
As a rule, no. Braces for ordinary bite problems aren't covered by Japan's public health insurance. [3]
There are three main exceptions:
- Bite problems caused by conditions on the health minister's official list
- Cases where 3 or more adult front teeth or premolars don't come in and surgery is needed to uncover the buried teeth
- Braces before and after surgery for a jaw deformity that requires cutting the jawbone
And the clinic itself has to meet set requirements to offer covered treatment. [3]
So this happens all the time:
My teeth bother me
→ about 800,000 yen
→ insurance: "Regular braces are self-pay."
That's the moment "metal braces in grade school" turns into "wow, my parents paid a lot."
9. No insurance, but maybe a tax deduction
Health insurance and Japan's medical expense tax deduction are two different things.
Japan's National Tax Agency says braces that are reasonably necessary given the person's age and the purpose can count toward the medical expense deduction, while braces done to improve looks or change your appearance don't. [4]
So you can end up with:
Insurance: not covered
Tax deduction: possibly yes, if it's for treatment
"Self-pay" doesn't automatically mean zero tax benefit.
10. So is starting in grade school always better? No
This is the part that most needs correcting.
Kids are still growing, so orthodontists can guide that growth in ways that aren't possible for adults. A 2025 systematic review gathered studies showing that early treatment had benefits for the dental arch, jaw relationship and airway in some Class II cases (where the upper teeth and jaw sit too far forward). [9]
But early isn't automatically better.
A Cochrane review summary on Class II Division 1 (big overbite with front teeth tipped forward) found that two-phase treatment, starting around ages 7 to 11 and again in the teen years, showed no clear advantage over one round in the teen years, except fewer new injuries to the front teeth. [10]
So the right move isn't:
First grade! Smash the "start braces" button!
Instead, check whether there's a problem worth treating now: an underbite, a strongly protruding upper jaw, jaw growth issues, not enough room for teeth to come in, or function problems.
What makes it a great long-term investment isn't starting as fast as possible. It's not missing the window when treatment actually helps, and finishing what's needed.
11. "Pretty people all had braces as kids." Is that just a feeling?
Not entirely. But don't read too much cause into it.
Braces can change part of how your teeth and mouth look. And whether a child gets braces at all depends partly on the family's money and situation.
A 2023 systematic review started from earlier evidence that families with higher socioeconomic status have better access to braces, and looked at gaps during treatment too. But links with the final results varied a lot between studies, so the conclusions were limited. [11]
A 2024 study of 173 people found no link between low socioeconomic status and having jaw or tooth-position problems in the first place. Where it did find differences was in sticking with treatment: showing up to appointments and taking care of the braces. [12]
That's the key point.
It's not that "poorer kids are born with worse jaws."
The gap comes from access to fixing it and keeping it fixed:
- parents noticing the problem
- taking the child to a specialist
- paying several hundred thousand to 1,000,000 yen
- keeping up years of appointments
- helping with brushing and caring for the braces
- sticking with it through the retainer stage
So those grade-school braces were metal on teeth, but also proof of a family running a multi-year project.
12. Does "better looking" really mean "richer"?
Careful with one-way cause and effect here too.
A study that followed people in the west of Scotland for about 20 years found that those rated more attractive at age 15 tended to have higher socioeconomic status at 36, in jobs, housing and income. The link held even after adjusting for parents' social class, intelligence, health, self-esteem and education. [13]
Economists have also long studied the "beauty premium," the link between looks and pay or employment. But the effect varies by job, gender and country, and it's hard to fully separate looks from confidence, personality, grooming, career choices and discrimination. [14]
So one direction is:
Family resources → access to dental care, cosmetic care and health → part of how you look as an adult
and the other direction may also exist:
How others rate your looks → how people treat you, career choices, the job market → income
But you can't use this to judge any one person, as in "she's pretty, so she must be rich" or "his teeth are crooked, so he must be poor."
All you can say is that money, health, looks and how society treats you aren't completely separate.
It's like real life has all its stat bars linked together.
13. If braces are an "investment," what are you buying?
They're not a financial product, so there's no interest rate to calculate.
But for someone who actually needs them, you're putting money into something your body uses for a long time:
- straight teeth and a working bite
- how your mouth and smile look
- teeth that are easier to clean and care for
- a better base for any dental work later
- getting rid of a looks worry you might carry for years
During treatment, brushing is harder, so cavities and gum care matter more. After treatment, teeth try to drift back, so you need a retainer. Nippon Dental University Hospital generally recommends wearing it for at least 2 years. [16]
So it's not "pay 1,000,000 yen and you're done."
Diagnosis → treatment → keeping things clean → retainer is one whole project.
If your parents ran that project for you starting in grade school, it makes sense that you only see its value now.
Wrap-up: those metal braces were a long-term project, not just awkward hardware
As a kid, it was just shiny metal everyone could see.
As an adult, it looks different:
If your teeth stick out, teeth can be moved. If your jaw is the main cause, braces alone have limits. Mewing and face exercises won't move an adult jawbone. Regular braces in Japan are self-pay, and even university hospital examples run from several hundred thousand to about 1,000,000 yen. Insurance has strict conditions; the tax deduction is a separate question. Early treatment depends on the case. Earlier isn't always better. And family money can affect whether a kid gets treatment and sticks with it for years.
So looking back at those grade-school braces, the best summary is probably:
"The kid sparkled for a few years. The parents paid for a few years. The kid gets to keep the result for life."
Not a bad long-term investment.
