I jokingly tell many of my patients after surgery; no bungi cord jumping, roller coaster riding, or jumping on a Pogo stick (anything that will start and stop you quickly) They get a quick laugh, then say something to the effect: what can I really do? That's a great question, and I don't know if it has really been studied. I do know that the more activity a patient does, the more likely things will happen. For instance: After operating on a friend, (back in the days before small incision surgery), he was doing minor chores at home. While he was shaking a kink out of an electrical cord, the end flipped up and hit him in the operated eye, opening his wound. A worse case scenario. I had to take him back to surgery, repair the wound. He did fine, but could have seriously injured/infected his eye. If he had been more sedate, perhaps it would not have happened. I routinely tell golfers, no golfing for a week. Do I really think golfing will hurt the eye 48 hrs. - 72 hrs. after surgery? Probably not. It is the other possibilities that go along with increased activity. The 6 pack of beer, the golf cart accidents, the foreign debris.....the unpredictable that can and will occur.
So, what did I do? After the first eye, I limited my activity. Jogged 6 days later, no problems. After the second eye, I jogged 48 hrs. later. Now, I have no idea whether that was a factor, but later in the day, there was some definite pain in my most recently operated eye. Does jogging move the implant enough to cause a slightly increased inflammation? Seems unlikely. I don't really know, but my eye did throb and hurt in a manner that the other didn't. I increased my anti-inflammatory drops and decreased my activity and everything was fine. (To clarify, the implant becomes 'shrink-wrapped' in a clear capsule, and generally cannot move after the initial healing phase.) Jogging and other physical activities should not be a problem after that occurs.
The most frequent question is concerning lifting objects. How much can I lift? Again, I'm not sure straining to lift a heavy object will hurt the eye, it's the grandchild's finger that accidently pokes the eye, that may do the damage. (We no longer use sutures with cataract surgery, so sutures can't break, but other damage could occur) I caution my patients.....just be careful. Even thought we are in a new era of eye surgery, "things happen." Don't mess it up. I should have taken my own advice!