Swimming after Retinal Detachment?

Yeah, I know more about this than I'd like to. My daughter had this last year, and after a year, it failed. So had a repair a few weeks ago......which failed. Back to try to fix that on Monday. Scleral buckle or vitrectomy? If victrectomy, gas or oil bubble? The types of surgeries are completely and totally different, and the post surgery activities and timelines are completely and totally different. Guessing by what you said, you had a vitrectomy with gas. In my daughter's case, she first had the buckle, which seemed to be fine for nearly a year. No idea why it detached. For that surgery, no swimming for a month, as the nature of the surgery made the eye much more prone to infection from water. But there were no concerns for any type of straining, so she was able to do intense dryland during that period. This time around, since the buckle failed, she had a victrectomy. Unfortunately, since there was a lot of scarring, they had to do the oil, rather than the gas. The nature of this surgery meant that she was fine to swim again after just a couple of weeks, but only in pools. However, no straining. That means no lifting weights or drylands beyond cardio based ones. Also, can't be on her back so no backstroke. I am under the impresssion that this will be until the fluid is removed, 3 months post surgery. Unfortunately for her, the initial victrectomy failed right away. Before any activity resumed. The reason was that we were not clear on head positioning. Were told emphatically "no lying on back," but that the side is fine. Unfortunately, we did not get teh message that she was to lie on her right side, so she lied on her left side. And the bubble was not positioned properly, so it didn't take. Buckle took a year to fail. Why it did, we don't know. They are successful 90% of the time, and I know of no mitigating factors for the other 10%, other than severe myopia (i.e. -11 diopters in her case). But she had been swimming from a month post operation until 2 months prior to failure (due to pool closings). She had been doing very intesne drylands for those two months, but again, no indication that is why. I would think that for the vitrectomy, be it gas (presumably in your case), or oil, the added substance increases internal pressure in the eye, and I thin that the doctor said the risk is glaucoma, rather than another detachment. For my daughter, it will be 3 months until the fluid is removed. For you, I'm guessing maybe the argon takes about the same amount of time to be absorbed? I assume you will be having routine eye exams where they measure the pressure. So I would just go with that. But nothing we have seen or heard gives any indication that swimming would increase any risk, once the eye has healed from the operation. And again, with the vitrectomy, the eye heals much, much more quickly, so 2 weeks should be good to go (also the eye will be at a MUCH lower risk to infection should it get wet).

Yeah, I know more about this than I'd like to. My daughter had this last year, and after a year, it failed. So had a repair a few weeks ago......which failed. Back to try to fix that on Monday. Scleral buckle or vitrectomy? If victrectomy, gas or oil bubble? The types of surgeries are completely and totally different, and the post surgery activities and timelines are completely and totally different. Guessing by what you said, you had a vitrectomy with gas. In my daughter's case, she first had the buckle, which seemed to be fine for nearly a year. No idea why it detached. For that surgery, no swimming for a month, as the nature of the surgery made the eye much more prone to infection from water. But there were no concerns for any type of straining, so she was able to do intense dryland during that period. This time around, since the buckle failed, she had a victrectomy. Unfortunately, since there was a lot of scarring, they had to do the oil, rather than the gas. The nature of this surgery meant that she was fine to swim again after just a couple of weeks, but only in pools. However, no straining. That means no lifting weights or drylands beyond cardio based ones. Also, can't be on her back so no backstroke. I am under the impresssion that this will be until the fluid is removed, 3 months post surgery. Unfortunately for her, the initial victrectomy failed right away. Before any activity resumed. The reason was that we were not clear on head positioning. Were told emphatically "no lying on back," but that the side is fine. Unfortunately, we did not get teh message that she was to lie on her right side, so she lied on her left side. And the bubble was not positioned properly, so it didn't take. Buckle took a year to fail. Why it did, we don't know. They are successful 90% of the time, and I know of no mitigating factors for the other 10%, other than severe myopia (i.e. -11 diopters in her case). But she had been swimming from a month post operation until 2 months prior to failure (due to pool closings). She had been doing very intesne drylands for those two months, but again, no indication that is why. I would think that for the vitrectomy, be it gas (presumably in your case), or oil, the added substance increases internal pressure in the eye, and I thin that the doctor said the risk is glaucoma, rather than another detachment. For my daughter, it will be 3 months until the fluid is removed. For you, I'm guessing maybe the argon takes about the same amount of time to be absorbed? I assume you will be having routine eye exams where they measure the pressure. So I would just go with that. But nothing we have seen or heard gives any indication that swimming would increase any risk, once the eye has healed from the operation. And again, with the vitrectomy, the eye heals much, much more quickly, so 2 weeks should be good to go (also the eye will be at a MUCH lower risk to infection should it get wet).