u/07CMD

I recently have been fully set on getting braces, after finishing school I started work rather than going to college and now have money to actually get them fixed. As a kid I had pretty good teeth, but now they are awful. For years I wasn't bothered but now I look in the mirror and don't know how I dealt with this for so long. This, with the rise of maxing out your looks online has made me super conscious of it now. I have crowding on both the upper and lower set, an overbite, deep bite, dual bite. All terms thrown around by consultations. I can close my mouth in two locations and depending on which side i do it on leaves a gap on the other side between top and bottom teeth. I believe this is contributing to facial asymmetry as over years i feel as if my face is almost going more towards one side. The natural side i close my mouth on looks better on inner camera while the non natural one looks better to outer camera. I went to my regular dental practice which examined the possibility of invisalign, but he said I wasn't suited to it as it would require too much correction and couldn't be done properly with this method. So I went to a proper orthodontist and got assessed and she said that to fix it she'd have to remove 2 of my teeth. Now I have talked to people at work who have had braces and they said removals were rare nowadays? I was surprised to hear this was her plan for it. My hope in getting braces was of course yes to fix my teeth but also I had hoped it would help the appearance of my jawline. I am beginning to realise that this whole thing is ridiculously more complicated than I first thought, and I have no clue now what to do about it. It feels like everywhere I look online has different opinions and solutions about it. The orthodontist did say she believes the lower jaw is not as wide as my upper jaw, so the teeth on top grew backwards to meet them. Could I get a palate expander first, followed then by braces to avoid the need to remove any teeth? The upper two thirds of my face are alright, the lower third drags my looks down considerably so if I managed to widen my jaw and chin this would not only benefit my looks and possibly fix the assymetry but would also allow the teeth to have the space they need. At least, that's what my brain is believing from everything I have seen online. Stumped, I decided to go to a community where perhaps a professional or someone who had a similar experience could weigh in on and tell me if the palate expander could be an option, or if it would be jaw surgery that's required? If palate expander is an option will it really change how my jaw and chin looks and help my overall look, or just benefit my braces? Would getting teeth removed ruin the look of my face and teeth if I ever chose to do any surgery with my jaw in future? Thanks in advance, any and all input is greatly appreciated.