Hi… Can anyone help me out with this ?
How soon after my Cataract Surgery can I SAFELY start exercising again without ANY risk oF damaging my eye with increased blood pressure or eye pressure…?
Would you recommend using suspension training systems like the TRX or the Rip 60 along with resistance bands and isometrics before progressing to heavy free weight compounds like Squats, dead lifts, bench and military presses…?
My surgeon recommended very casually and vaguely a few months at least… But not with any scientific explanation except better to be safe than sorry logic.
I would appreciate an opinion from someone who has been through this or has any experience with this issue.
Thanks a lot in advance for your advice / opinion.
Ask your surgeon for specifics. No one here should comment any further than that.
[quote]morgoth wrote:
Hi… Can anyone help me out with this ?
How soon after my Cataract Surgery can I SAFELY start exercising again without ANY risk oF damaging my eye with increased blood pressure or eye pressure…?
Would you recommend using suspension training systems like the TRX or the Rip 60 along with resistance bands and isometrics before progressing to heavy free weight compounds like Squats, dead lifts, bench and military presses…?
My surgeon recommended very casually and vaguely a few months at least… But not with any scientific explanation except better to be safe than sorry logic.
I would appreciate an opinion from someone who has been through this or has any experience with this issue.
Thanks a lot in advance for your advice / opinion.[/quote]
I am a board-certified ophthalmic surgeon. Your surgeon gave a vague and seemingly unscientific recommendation because there are (to my knowledge) no studies in the ophthalmic literature on this subject.
However, I can tell you that if your criterion is (as you state) “How soon after my Cataract Surgery can I SAFELY start exercising again without ANY risk oF damaging my eye” [emphasis mine], the answer is…Never. That is, any activity involving the Valsalva maneuver places the eye at risk of injury.
Presumably, what you meant to ask was ‘how soon after cataract surgery does my risk of weightlifting-induced eye injury return to baseline?’ As mentioned above, there are no published data addressing this question, therefore, no one on the planet can look you in your (pseudophakic) eyes and give a definitive answer. I can tell you that, in my opinion and FWIW, your surgeon’s recommendation of waiting several months (at least) seems prudent. But the best advice is (as stated by CroatianRage) to follow your surgeon’s recommendations, as he is the individual who knows your eye (and ocular surgical history) better than anyone else. Best of luck.
@ CroatianRage : My Surgeon had no clue. While being extremely good & reputed in his field of expertise, he had no idea about weight training or its effects related to Cataract surgery. 95% of his patients were senior citizen & the other 5% had never expressed any interest in lifting weights.
He even asked me why I needed to lift weights, when according to him walking on the treadmill was safer & better for my heart as well. So i had no further discussion with him on this subject.
Thank you, EyeDentist.
You are right - what I meant to ask is “how soon after cataract surgery does my risk of weightlifting-induced eye injury return to baseline?”
I was really hoping someone could give me a precise answer. I couldn’t find any information on the net after searching on Google as well as writing to several respected strength coaches.
Finally T-Nation Facebook Page asked me to post my question here.
Thanks for your reply - I’ll wait for a couple of months 
[quote]morgoth wrote:
@ CroatianRage : My Surgeon had no clue. While being extremely good & reputed in his field of expertise, he had no idea about weight training or its effects related to Cataract surgery. 95% of his patients were senior citizen & the other 5% had never expressed any interest in lifting weights.
He even asked me why I needed to lift weights, when according to him walking on the treadmill was safer & better for my heart as well. So i had no further discussion with him on this subject.
Thank you, EyeDentist.
You are right - what I meant to ask is “how soon after cataract surgery does my risk of weightlifting-induced eye injury return to baseline?”
I was really hoping someone could give me a precise answer. I couldn’t find any information on the net after searching on Google as well as writing to several respected strength coaches.
Finally T-Nation Facebook Page asked me to post my question here.
Thanks for your reply - I’ll wait for a couple of months :-)[/quote]
You’re welcome. And while disappointing/frustrating for you personally, I’m sure you can see why this issue has not been addressed in the medical literature–as you note, the vast majority of cataract-surgery pts are quite elderly, and no propensity exists among the few non-elderly pts to be serious weightlifters. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would be literally impossible to conduct an adequately-powered prospective study on the relationship between cataract-surgery outcomes and heavy weightlifting, as the pool of potential participants is vanishingly small.
Ironically, YOU are going to provide your surgeon with (a modicum of) the experience/knowledge concerning cataract-surgery-and-weightlifting that you wish he already possessed. That is, your surgeon is going to draw on your post-surgical experience as his ‘N=1’ experiment on the subject. Thus, should he ever have another weightlifter as a cataract-surgery pt, your surgeon will respond to that pt’s questions about resuming weightlifting based on how your eyes turn out. Again, best of luck.