Retainers After Surgery

[sparkles]

I know I'm jumping the gun here but my daughter got her braces off last week and got her retainers today. She has Essix retainers and I'm amazed...you can't tell she is wearing them!! I've never seen or had Essix retainers before.
I've had Hawley retainers myself but now she has hers, I'm wondering what kind of retainers I will get.
My daughter's ortho wondered if I'd get bonded retainers.
If you have surgery, does that mean you are more likely to get a specific retainer type, and if so which kind?

[sirwired]

Well, after my braces/LeFort, my ortho had me on either Essix or Hawley during the day for my upper (my choice), upper Hawley at night, and lower Hawley 24/7 for six months. He gave me the impression that an Essix would not provide the support to maintain my LeFort (I needed a TPA to hold it in place while I was in post-surgical braces), which is why he supplied an upper Hawley also.

(I guess he has compliance problems with upper Hawleys in public, so that's why he gave me an Essix also... I ended up rarely wearing the Essix, as I work from home; the Hawley 24/7 was fine with me.)

You may be able to get away with all-Essix, depending on the lateral stability of your surgery.

I'm now on upper/lower night-only Hawley for the next couple of years. I can tell the upper is pushing my palate apart again every night...

P.S. My ortho is a big fan of bonded lower retainers, (as lowers relapse really fast if your compliance is poor) but I turned that down.

[sparkles]

Thanks sirwired for your thoughts.
I'll be honest and say I'm not fussed what retainers I get when it comes to how they look, been in braces far too long now for that.
I wonder now after reading your experiences if I'll get Hawkleys or bonded retainers, especially since in the 3 weeks post surgery when I didn't have my pontic in my top teeth moved quite a lot and the space for my pontic was too big.