swimming - hat or not?

cattkitt

I got my eyes lasered. It was done by a top Moorfields surgeon. Brilliant result, can swim without getting old men into trouble with their wives when swimming, and walk in the rain and dark with my head held upright(not dodging raindrops with glasses) and happily follow instructions in belly dancing class. It cost me several years of birthday money, but totally worth it!

jessilu1

I have a pool and in the summer I swim up to 3 times a day. I have long coloured hair, and at first I never wore a hat. My Hair inevitably turned straw like , breaking, and falling out !


Wearing a silicone cap is an absolute must if you want to prevent damage to your hair, but also through
trial and error I found that you can do 2 things that work well.

Showering before you get into the pool not only cleans your body of all creams and lotions which will clog up the filters of the pool but if you soak your hair just with plain water before putting your cap on , it's enough to prevent the chlorine from damaging your hair.

The 2nd way is as mentioned before, and is to first wet your hair then comb through a small amount of conditioner....but it's very important if you do this that you wear a tight fitting silicone cap, or else as with the creams the conditioner will cause the pool water to become oily .

After you leave the pool, immediately wash & rinse your hair under the shower to remove any possible chlorine residue.

foreign_correspondent

cattkitt wrote: »

I got my eyes lasered. It was done by a top Moorfields surgeon. Brilliant result, can swim without getting old men into trouble with their wives when swimming, and walk in the rain and dark with my head held upright(not dodging raindrops with glasses) and happily follow instructions in belly dancing class. It cost me several years of birthday money, but totally worth it!

that is interesting... a colleague of mine had them done and said she wouldnt recommend it - and after she once drove me home in the dark, I wouldnt have recommended it either... she veered between hedge and the opposite carriageway all the way back :eek:

Have you had any problems with seeing at night, glare etc?

cattkitt

No, not at all. In fact, my night vision has improved. After my husband's death, I was spending a lot more time on public transport, especially at night. It was horrible. I couldn't see too well for some reason especially on Tube stations, and on separate occasions I was approached by unwashed men at bus stops(wail: Why unwashed? Why me?)

Anyhow, this is why I keep on recommending this surgeon. He's a top consultant at Moorfields, and I wanted to be confident that I had minimised my chances of getting any odd effects like glare and stuff, seeing(no pun intended) that I was going to be stuck with whatever the result was for a good part of my remaining life, and I didn't think that saving the odd £1000 with whatever high street chain was quite worth it. Cost me £3.5k and I'm very very happy.

Every now and again, especially when retiring for bed or waking up to go downstairs, I find myself reaching for my glasses "so that I'll have them handy for when I need to see", purely out of habit.

jenniewb

I would say YES! Defo wear a swim cap!

I used to swim once a week about 3 years ago. I always wore a swim cap and my hair never stuck out to me as being especially frizzy or straw like. I failed to notice any difference when I stopped swimming so would say it did help or I'd have noticed the condition improving.

And just to confirm that, I went swimming 2 weeks ago just by chance. I had however forgotten to bring my swimming hat.
After my shower my hair felt so terrible- it was corse, dry and very frizzy. I have just spent the past 2 weeks plying on the hair treatments, sleeping with conditioner in my hair and plastering my hair with leave-in products to get it back to a normalised level! This alone is enough to remind me to not make the same mistake twice and wear a cap next time!

Savvy_Sue

I tried a hat, but still got water in my ears, which I hate, so I now use earplugs and a hair band to keep them from fallling out. But I do recommend goggles, if you don't have any!

foreign_correspondent

I always struggle with goggles... I think my eye sockets are a bit too big for them! I am at the opticians tomorrow, so I may ask them for their advice.

cattkitt - I always attract the great unwashed too! Its not good is it!?

I may look into the lazering! Any advice/info gratefully recieved!

cattkitt

I went with Julian Stevens at Moorfields. He charges about £115 for a consultation, then you can decide whether or not to go ahead. I also went for a free consultation with a high street name.

The actual checks were pretty similar. But with the Moorfields chap, it was noted that I sew and read. I actually only do mending, not embroidery, but considered it important to be able to do so in comfort, given my new straightened circumstances. So they gave me the option of perfect sight in my dominant eye(yes, we all have one, and they check for it!), and slightly less than perfect sight in the other eye to make mending more comfy.

AND I wasn't led into a pressure sales thing with the Moorfields chap. The high street company(to be fair, they have a consultation suite in Harley Street) had several points of pressure sales, including their follow up call. What took the biscuit is during their follow up call, I mentioned that their price was about 8 times the advertised £275 price. The sales girl simpered "Oh, but you can't put a price on your eyes, can you?" I replied "But you just did". For some reason, it seemed to strike her dumb; it was as though no customer had ever said that to her before, although it seemed such an obvious comeback.

Anyhow, I went with the Moorfields chap, who had a full diary, didn't push for customers, and was doing an eye transplant later that day! Proper eye person.

cattkitt

BTW, it's not an advantage touted on any eye laser literature, but I note that the great unwashed have not approached me since the eye op. I can only assume that my myopically vague gaze was emitting some sort of siren call to them. (She cannot see, mayhap she will not sight the dirt on me. I really have no idea!)

Organic12

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

I always struggle with goggles...

Zoggs and Speedo do smaller googles for women. I've got the Zogg ones and they're brilliant.

To the OP, yes, do wear a cap imo. It's keeps hair our of your eyes. As a regular swimmer, it's truely revolting to get a strand of some else's hair, that's floating around in the water, caught up in your fingers.

Have fun getting back into the pool!