Why Thumb Pulling Is Cope, Gay and Low IQ (Science-Based)

[nikitarm]

there is no credible clinical evidence showing that “thumb pulling” can remodel the adult maxilla. What we do have is indirect evidence from well-studied fields that makes the claim very unlikely.


Here are the relevant lines of evidence :

---

1. Bone remodeling requires sustained, controlled forces​

Craniofacial bones follow the Wolff's law: they adapt to continuous mechanical loading over time, not brief, irregular pressure.

• Orthodontic tooth movement works because forces are applied 24/7 via appliances.
• Typical effective forces are light but constant (on the order of ~0.5–1 N for teeth).

Evidence:

-DOI: 10.1093/ejo/cjp103— establishes that intermittent forces are far less effective than continuous forces.
-Davidovitch Z. — biological basis of tooth movement requires sustained on periodontal ligament.

Thumb pulling = short, inconsistent, poorly directed force → not comparable.

---

2. Adult maxillary sutures are largely fused​

The idea of widening the palate manually ignores basic craniofacial biology.

• The midpalatal suture progressively interdigitates and becomes resistant to expansion after adolescence.
• In adults, skeletal expansion typically requires surgery (SARPE).

Evidence:
Angelieri F. et al. (2013) — classification of midpalatal suture maturation shows increasing fusion with age. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24182592/

Melsen B. (1975) — histological study showing age-related ossification of sutures.

Rapid Palatal Expansion works predictably in children, not adults without surgical assistance.

Your thumbs cannot overcome fused sutures.

---

3. Proven expansion methods use appliances, not hands​

When expansion is done clinically:

• Devices like Hyrax or MARPE apply precise, anchored forces.
• Forces are distributed across teeth and bone with controlled vectors.

Evidence:

MARPE literature shows skeletal changes in adults only with anchorage and continuous activation.

BMC Oral Health.,2022 — miniscrew anchorage improves skeletal expansion outcomes.

Thumb pulling has:

no anchorage
no force calibration
no directional control

So it cannot replicate these outcomes.

---

4. No peer-reviewed studies on thumb pulling​

This is telling.

No randomized trials
No case series
No imaging-based evidence (CBCT, cephalometrics)

In contrast, orthodontics has decades of quantified data.


When something supposedly “works” but leaves zero trace in scientific literature, you should pause.

---

5. Reported “results” are explainable without bone change​

Perceived improvements are likely due to:

• Postural changes (head/neck/tongue)
• Reduced facial fat
• Lighting, angle, or lens distortion
• Placebo / confirmation bias

These are well-known confounders in facial aesthetics. These guys who post before/after always fraud to some degree or their changes are relate to other reasons like puberty

---

Bottom line :​

• Bone remodeling = slow, continuous, controlled force
• Adult sutures = resistant to manual manipulation
• Clinical expansion = engineered systems, not fingers
• Scientific literature = silent on thumb pulling

So the burden of proof is upside down:
extraordinary claims (manual facial remodeling) with zero evidence.

 

[ZyzzReincarnate]

—

 

[supersaiyancarp27]

dnr ngl but ur probably right

 

[nwed]

there is no credible clinical evidence showing that “thumb pulling” can remodel the adult maxilla. What we do have is indirect evidence from well-studied fields that makes the claim very unlikely.


Here are the relevant lines of evidence :

---

1. Bone remodeling requires sustained, controlled forces​

Craniofacial bones follow the Wolff's law: they adapt to continuous mechanical loading over time, not brief, irregular pressure.

• Orthodontic tooth movement works because forces are applied 24/7 via appliances.
• Typical effective forces are light but constant (on the order of ~0.5–1 N for teeth).

Evidence:

-DOI: 10.1093/ejo/cjp103— establishes that intermittent forces are far less effective than continuous forces.
-Davidovitch Z. — biological basis of tooth movement requires sustained on periodontal ligament.

Thumb pulling = short, inconsistent, poorly directed force → not comparable.

---

2. Adult maxillary sutures are largely fused​

The idea of widening the palate manually ignores basic craniofacial biology.

• The midpalatal suture progressively interdigitates and becomes resistant to expansion after adolescence.
• In adults, skeletal expansion typically requires surgery (SARPE).

Evidence:
Angelieri F. et al. (2013) — classification of midpalatal suture maturation shows increasing fusion with age. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24182592/

Melsen B. (1975) — histological study showing age-related ossification of sutures.

Rapid Palatal Expansion works predictably in children, not adults without surgical assistance.

Your thumbs cannot overcome fused sutures.

---

3. Proven expansion methods use appliances, not hands​

When expansion is done clinically:

• Devices like Hyrax or MARPE apply precise, anchored forces.
• Forces are distributed across teeth and bone with controlled vectors.

Evidence:

MARPE literature shows skeletal changes in adults only with anchorage and continuous activation.

BMC Oral Health.,2022 — miniscrew anchorage improves skeletal expansion outcomes.

Thumb pulling has:

no anchorage
no force calibration
no directional control

So it cannot replicate these outcomes.

---

4. No peer-reviewed studies on thumb pulling​

This is telling.

No randomized trials
No case series
No imaging-based evidence (CBCT, cephalometrics)

In contrast, orthodontics has decades of quantified data.


When something supposedly “works” but leaves zero trace in scientific literature, you should pause.

---

5. Reported “results” are explainable without bone change​

Perceived improvements are likely due to:

• Postural changes (head/neck/tongue)
• Reduced facial fat
• Lighting, angle, or lens distortion
• Placebo / confirmation bias

These are well-known confounders in facial aesthetics. These guys who post before/after always fraud to some degree or their changes are relate to other reasons like puberty

---

Bottom line :​

• Bone remodeling = slow, continuous, controlled force
• Adult sutures = resistant to manual manipulation
• Clinical expansion = engineered systems, not fingers
• Scientific literature = silent on thumb pulling

So the burden of proof is upside down:
extraordinary claims (manual facial remodeling) with zero evidence.
View attachment 5021875

dnr, water but true

 

[shaneywaney69]

 

[nikitarm]

that's not ai, i provide the evidence and give the references. You're a low IQ faggot if you think this post is ai-generated

 

[narrowmouthcel]

AI

 

[nikitarm]

AI

No proof, you moron. AI can’t do PubMed research

 

[narrowmouthcel]

No proof, you moron. AI can’t do PubMed research

sure boyo

 

[nikitarm]

View attachment 5021987 sure boyo

How accurate is that, AI can pull studies, but it still can’t properly analyze research without human input. Furthermore, my point was just to debunk thumb pulling

 

[narrowmouthcel]

How accurate is that, AI can pull studies, but it still can’t properly analyze research without human input.

just admit to using ai

 

[ND true apollo]

People said this about bonesmashing for a long time and now its been proven. There is enough scientific evidence to believe that its possible to soften the suture to the point the maxilla splits just by doing these types of exercises. I can post a thread about it but just know its completely plausible biomechanically. The main problem is the relapse but I think it's possible to manage without a retainer.

 

[nikitarm]

People said this about bonesmashing for a long time and now its been proven. There is enough scientific evidence to believe that its possible to soften the suture to the point the maxilla splits just by doing these types of exercises. I can post a thread about it but just know its completely plausible biomechanically. The main problem is the relapse but I think it's possible to manage without a retainer.

you give no evidence to support your claim

 

[ND true apollo]

you give no evidence to support your claim

I can post it and @ you. Do you want with AI and post maybe today or tomorrow or no AI but in a couple days to a week? In a couple of months I'll post results too if thats what you want

 

[jesseblueman]

Dnr worked for me while I was in puberty

 

[shaneywaney69]

that's not ai, i provide the evidence and give the references. You're a low IQ faggot if you think this post is ai-generated

Tardy tard

 

[ErgogenicCHNO]

1. jfl of course there is zero clinical trials on thumbpulling, how would they carry out the clinical investigation (there is plethora of factors i.e. anatomical knowledge, knowledge of force vectors to name primary ones not to mention it can cause dental/alveolar bone tipping) and for what particular reason would anyone carry this out. Thumbpulling is not relevant in orthodontics or in the realm TSDO. And the gain is non-existent.
2. Thumbpulling is not better than the continuous force applied by the Hyrax expanders or generic orthodontic appliances, no one is arguing about this the point is in the paper you mentioned intermittent forces still caused sutural expansion thats the whole point - "Continuous forces produced significantly greater overall sutural separation (1.3 mm) than intermittent forces (0.8 mm)". Intermittent forces still cause transverse sutural expansion.
3. You do not need static continuous forces to stimulate anabolic activity in the suture. First cyclic forces promote more anabolic activity then static force, ones applied in MARPEs search on google scholar static vs. cyclic forces effect on sutural expansion. Second forces do not need to be continuous throughout the day due to the reason biological tissues being viscoelastic and having a 'strain memory' meaning that a portion of creep strain will accumulate or will take time to recover due to viscous behavior (look into boltzmann's superposition principle/Quasi-linear viscoelasticity). Thus applied cyclic forces to sutures causing strain will accumulate over sessions eventually reaching osteogenesis causing thresholds.
4. Sutures being fused or patent is grey and black, whole sutural fusion (whole sutural fusion is rarely seen) or patency does not matter what matters is fusion index and obliteration index (amount of sutural ECM density and parasutural bony projections and interlocking). Moreover, maturation stages A-E is the genetic lottery - some people will be in stage B at 23 while some will be stage D at 17. Moreover "Rupture of the intermaxillary suture was achieved in all three experiments with the microimplant-supported screw. The strain measurement on one of the expansion screws resulted in an expansion force of 86 N." - https://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB:gcd:16:37969600/detailv2?sid=ebscolink:scholar&id=ebsco:gcd:85169387&crl=c&link_origin=scholar.google.com and "Statistical analysis of the MTF suggested that the main effect of the gender was statistically significant in this study (p < 0.05). The average MTF of females was 100.62 N, which corresponds to 73.62% of the MTF (136.71 N) of males.".

Overall, manual sutural distraction osteogenesis is very nuanced and a interesting realm of facial modeling.

 

[nikitarm]

Firstly, thanks for reading the whole thread and make a response more sofisticated than the usual "thumb pulling works bro" argument because it borrows legitimate concepts from biomechanics and craniofacial orthopedics.

what we seems to have a disagreement on is the theorical possiblity vs demonstrated clinical efficacity.

The strongest point is : intermittent or cyclic forces can still stimulate sutural biology

The main problem: scaling from “biologic possibility” to “real-world remodeling”
-sutures can respond to force,
-intermittent forces can produce some biologic effects,
-adults vary in suture maturation,
-some adults retain partial patency.

But clinical expansion in adults still requires force systems far beyond what casual manual manipulation demonstrates.
Even the paper you cited reports forces around: ~86–137 N
That is massive compared to what people casually apply with thumbs for a few minutes daily.
And we have to acknowledge :
-those forces were delivered through engineered appliances,
-with rigid anchorage,
-controlled vectors,
-stable force distribution,
-and continuous activation protocols.

That is completely different biomechanically from self-applied finger pressure.

The intermittent-force argument is being overstretched​

The study comparing intermittent vs continuous expansion does not imply:
“therefore thumb pulling can remodel adult maxillae.”

It only shows that under controlled experimental conditions,intermittent orthopedic forces can still produce some sutural response.

That’s a very different claim.

A biologic response detectable in an experiment is not equivalent to:
clinically meaningful skeletal widening,visible facial remodeling, stable long-term expansion or aesthetic transformation.

Lots of tissues exhibit measurable mechanobiologic responses without producing macroscopically meaningful changes.

Viscoelasticity and “strain memory” are real but not magic​

Their discussion of creep, stress relaxation, quasi-linear viscoelasticity, Boltzmann superposition is scientifically legitimate.
But again, this only establishes that tissues do not instantly “reset” after loading.

It does not prove that
-accumulated thumb pressure reaches osteogenic thresholds
-sufficient strain reaches the midpalatal suture
-the force vectors are appropriate
-or the effect exceeds ordinary physiologic loading from chewing, swallowing, bruxism, etc.

The strongest counterpoint remains: lack of evidence​

If manual sutural distraction in adults were genuinely effective at producing visible craniofacial remodeling, we would expect at least:
CBCT-documented case reports,orthodontic pilot studies, quantified intermolar width changes, cephalometric evidence, reproducible protocols etc.
Instead, essentially all evidence is: anecdotal, photographic,uncontrolled, and heavily confounded.

That matters.

Medicine is full of things that are theoretically plausible but clinically ineffective.

the "grey not black and white" point is fair. Struture maturation varies widely, chronological age alone is imperfect and some adults retain more expandable sutures than others.

Modern MARPE literature supports this.

But this actually reinforces how individualized and mechanically demanding skeletal expansion is.

If expansion success already varies significantly even with: CBCT planning, miniscrew anchorage,calibrated expansion systems,
orthodontic supervision,

Then, assuming informal manual manipulation reliably works becomes even harder to justify and undermines the seductive marketing idea promoted by Oscar Patel that anyone can grow their forward maxilla by putting fingers in their mouth
(@ND true apollo) which was the point I was trying to make here (and boneshmashing has never been "proven" btw(@ND true apollo) but Some individuals appear to struggle with understanding nuanced concepts)






I'm still open for the debate

 

[Thxbz]

Dnr