Exercise and water retention?

It has been a challenge for me to exercise lately.  Since I had to put my beloved dog Sid to sleep 6 weeks ago, I have no desire to walk.  He was my motivation and now it's just weird and lonely and tedious.  I have forced myself several times because I know I have to do it.  2 weeks ago, I walked 3 miles, two days in a row.  My fingers swelled up like sausages while I was walking and I couldn't get my usually loose rings off my fingers.  The next few days the scale kept creeping up so I took a water pill.  Within a day I was 6 pounds less.  Yesterday I walked and the same thing happened with my fingers and the swelling subsided in a couple hours.

Does anyone else have a problem with retaining fluid due to exercise?  I can't say for sure that one is related to the other, it could just have been a fluke.  These are the things I ponder when I am bored at work!

Not to that extent.  The day after a hard workout, I notice the scale might be slightly up, and then it goes back down the next day, so I figure my muscles are retaining water.  That is pretty significant retention you're mentioning, though. 

It could be mine is less because I'm pretty small now, or it could be something else.  If it continues, I'd check with a dr.

You might want to go see an endocrine doctor. I retain water like crazy and have to be on prescription fluid pills. I have to take a fluid pill just about every week or I will feel like a stuffed sausage. Which reminds me that I have not taken that freaking pill in 3 weeks. 

Any who... When I lift a lot of weights, I tend to increase on the scale the next day also.

Walking shouldn't be having that noticeable an effect.  When you do hard exercise, particularly weight training, you micro-tear muscles.  Water rushes in to repair the muscles, so there's a bit of water retention.  But what you're describing doesn't sound like retention from exercise.  Call your doc and tell him about it.