Distorted vision post sclelar buckle

My daughter, 15 years, had Sclelar buckle procedure done on her left eye in April 2009 to repair a retinal detachment which happened in December 2008.  Since there was significant time elapsed, the chance of her recovering the full vision was considerable less.  She has recovered well from the surgery and she is having a 20/40 vision with the glasses.  The problem is her vision is distorted which makes her see circle distorted to look like a tear drop.  Her Opthalmologist explained that this is because retina did not set into the same position it was before detachment.  My question is, Is this pretty common to happen when there is a retinal detachment and Will this get better with time?  Thanks.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

Yes, it is extremely common, almost the rule, with macula off retinal detachments. Given the length of time the problem called metamorphopsia is not likely to improve much.

JCH MD