How Long For Cataract Surgery Recovery – Cataract surgery is a relatively quick procedure, but the recovery period that follows requires extra attention and care. For information about how long it takes for cataract surgery to heal and ways to help speed up the recovery process, read on.
How Long Does It Take to Recover from Cataract Surgery?
It’s normal to take between 4-6 weeks to recover completely after cataract surgery, although the exact time varies from person to person. By six weeks, it’s likely any temporary side effects of your procedure will be gone and your vision will start to stabilise. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit around for 6 weeks – most people go back to their regular activities much earlier than that.
Immediately following a cataract procedure, a few common side effects may include:
- Sore and/or gritty
- Red
- Slightly puffy and swollen
- Blurry
- Glare sensitive
- Watery
After cataract surgery, it may only take one to two hours before your vision starts to improve. Your sight will fluctuate over the next four to six weeks; during this time, your prescription will most likely be variable and it is wise to avoid purchasing glasses at this point.
Whether you can return to work depends on the type of job you have. If it’s a non-strenuous job that doesn’t involve exposure to contaminants or risk of physical trauma, like an office worker, you could go back in one or two days. Conversely, if you’re in the military, a physical trainer, a swim coach, etc., typically more time off work is suggested as there’s an increased risk for eye infection.
It’s critical for you to adhere to your surgeon’s driving instructions following cataract surgery. You may think you’re seeing well enough after a few hours, but it’s important to wait until your doctor has checked your eye and deemed you ready to get back on the road. Typically, an eye exam is scheduled one day after the operation.
It’s common to experience some discomfort in your eyes during the first couple of weeks post-surgery. While this can create concerns, it usually isn’t indicative of any major issue. In some instances there may be dryness or sensitivity, which can last several months. For these instances, your surgeon might recommend lubricating eyedrops or wearing sunglasses when out in bright light as a means of managing any flares of discomfort.
Cataract surgery recovery can be affected by several factors. Persons with diabetes, a dense cataract, or corneal disorders are at greater risk of complications and may have a slower than normal recovery period. Even though the incision created during cataract surgery is tiny, individuals with a condition that slows wound healing may experience an extended recovery time.
5 Tips To Maximise Your Cataract Surgery Recovery Process
It is vitally important to follow your surgeon’s pre-operative and post-operative instructions carefully when recovering from cataract surgery. This ensures that you have the best chance at a successful recovery, with minimal side effects and discomfort. To maximize your chances, it is advised to keep the eye clean at all times, avoiding any contact or exposure that may lead to physical injury or infection. The following steps are recommended:
- It is very important that you adhere to the prescribed dosage schedule of your eye drops. This can involve taking up to three different medications, and even if you feel better after a week or two, you should continue to use them until you have completed the entire course. Following through with this prescription will help ensure that your symptoms will be adequately treated.
- It’s important to take precautions in order to prevent any increase in pressure on the head and eye. This means avoiding movements such as bending down, lifting heavy objects, engaging in physical exertion, coughing or sneezing or vomiting. Taking these steps can help keep your condition stable.
- To prevent physical injury, it’s important to maintain proper distance, particularly when interacting with young grandchildren or active pets. It is essential to practice safety precautions when engaging in such activities.
- It is important to keep products such as soap, lotions, and aerosols far away from the eye area in order to ensure safety and maintain healthy eyesight.
- In order to avoid the risks of infection, it is important to make sure unsterile water does not come in contact with your eyes. This includes bodies of water such as swimming pools, oceans, spas and saunas. While these areas may be safe to swim in, they can contain various types of microorganism, which can cause serious infections if they come into contact with eyes that are already vulnerable. For this reason, you should take extra care to make sure untreated water stays away from your eyes.
Recovering from cataract surgery isn’t always seamless, and your vision could quickly change due to a post-operative complication. If you experience any redness, blurriness, pain, or discharge in the affected eye, it’s crucial to seek medical attention right away. Your surgeon should be your first point of contact, but if they’re unavailable, contact your local optometrist or the emergency department at a nearby hospital. Even if your post-operative care went as planned, you can still run into issues like infection or swelling around the macula– if you experience anything out of the ordinary with your eyes after surgery, don’t wait; get help sooner rather than later.
Recovery & Vision Expectations After Cataract Surgery
Cataract surgery is one of the most common and successful surgeries performed today, with the majority of patients achieving improved vision within a few days of the procedure. But, how long does it take for someone to fully recover from cataract surgery? Depending on the type of cataract surgery, recovery can take from a few days to several weeks. During this time, it is important to follow your doctor’s instructions for proper care and follow-up visits to ensure success and reduce the risk of complications. In this article, we’ll discuss the recovery process and what you can expect during your cataract surgery recovery.
So with cataract surgery the most common surgery performed in the United States today. There is a typical healing pattern that we see with patients. So with any surgical procedure there’s a little bit of inflammation, there’s a little bit of swelling, and that is also true with cataract surgery. So patients can have some light sensitivity, they can have some blurred vision for a period of time. Typically that’s just a few days, usually with a patient with cataract surgery at the end of a week. They are seeing so dramatically better, that they’re asking us to please do my second eye. That’s typical. But typical doesn’t mean every single patient. So there’s variations in how patients go through surgical procedures.
There’s variations in biology and healing. So patients can be different, eyes can be different, even with the same patients. The healing process is often slightly quicker and those that have laser assisted cataract surgery, because less energy ultrasound energy we call it fake emulsification power or energy. Less is used when the laser has predivided the lens. For us and done some of the delicate steps and Maneuvers within the eye in a non-contact fashion. So that translates to oftentimes a little less, corneal swelling in those patients and a faster visual recovery. Although both forms of cataract surgery include a pretty rapid, healing and visual recovery. So at the end of cataract surgery we put inside of the eye a medication and it’s a combo medication. It’s anti-inflammatory medicine and an antibiotic. And we do that for convenience and we do that for safety. So by us placing the medication inside of the eye, compliance is 100 percent. And Studies have shown that it is safer to do this, than to rely on the patients to use eye drops afterwards. Because we’re preventing infection with any surgical procedure there’s a risk of that, and we’re reducing the healing period by giving you an anti-inflammatory.
Now this medicine is a little opaque and it’s floating around in the back of the eye. And so patients will see it they’ll see this it’s a little bit like a lava lamp, and you’ll notice this material for at least a few days up until a week, and I have some patients that notice it even weeks after their surgery although it’s markedly improving because the medicine is dissipating. So proper expectations are important with cataract surgery, and expectations about wearing glasses are very important. So we have technology today with cataract surgery that allows patients to be less dependent on glasses and on contact lenses. You will be educated about this when you come in for your screening evaluation for your cataract procedure. This is a personal choice and it’s really about you as an individual, what do you want when this is over, how do you want to see the decision you make impacts, how you will see for the rest of your life.
Patients often want to know what’s my dependency going to be on glasses or prescription glasses after cataract surgery. And and I tell them what depends completely on the technology or the technique that you choose, and you know I start with you know our Advanced option it uses the most advanced lens technology. And it is laser assisted to decrease astigmatism to increase precision and so the combination of the laser in the most advanced lens technology I tell patients that will greatly reduce your dependency on glasses, and to use them as little as possible. And what that translates to typically is good distance Vision, good intermediate Vision like your computer or what you’re cooking or holding something out far enough to read it and depending on the lens or how that lens works in your eye.
There’s some degree of near Vision achieved as well, but I say that even with the best lens technology available. We don’t have Infinity to the tip of your nose so you might find some need for over-the-counter reading glasses. But only for fine print in most cases we do have an offering called custom vision which is similar to Advanced where it is laser assisted it does address astigmatism, but is a distance priority lens so I tell those patients yes we are going for as clear as possible distance Vision without glasses. And then hopefully only needing over-the-counter readers for Arms Reach and in Vision. The manual option which is what’s typically covered by insurance we are doing it by hand and insurance also covers a basic lens that doesn’t correct the stigmatism. And so our expectation there is improved overall quality of vision just because of the Cataract is gone, colors will be brighter as far as the focus is concerned.
What that translates to is a lot of those patients needing glasses to see well and to see sharply, at all distances so more of a 100 dependency is much more likely in in that case or in the manual case. Than it is with custom or Advanced. So with cataract surgery what are we after, we are truly after 20 happy, 20 functional ,so that’s not a set number it’s really driven by the patient. So what is functional vision, it means just that that you’re able to function you’re able to get around and do your normal daily tasks, and you’re able to do those things safely. If prescription glasses are required to see your best after manual surgery, or if patients prefer to wear prescription glasses after cataract surgery, we tell patients to wait one month. Because as you heal the prescription numbers tend to fluctuate up and down before settling and becoming stable. That stability should be long term but it’s not usually reached for about a month.
Safety, Recovery & the Effects post Cataract Surgery
We see so many patients daily in our opinion and the most common patients we see are of cataract. Whenever we diagnose patient with cataract and we tell them that we will have to go undergo a surgery. The first question comes from many patients is, is there any other option for surgery. Ideally this we in market we get some drugs for cataract but really speaking nothing helps. Cataract is an age related change which everybody gets and at some more other time you have to get it replaced with some artificial lens. Nowadays cataract surgical techniques and lenses are so much advanced, that surgical rehabilitation the post of care is so less surgical rehabilitation is very fast.
Like you can resume your routine activities from very next day, like driving cooking household work, traveling, everything can be resumed from very next day. All this is because nowadays as it is done with drops, without any injection there is no bandage, there is no stitches in the eye, hence all surgical rehabilitation is very fast. Many patients they say they are confused regarding the timing of surgery. Ideally whenever you have difficulty in your day-to-day activities, you should get that surgery done like when your your driving is affected, your tv viewing is affected, your reading is affected, you need a surgery. You need not wait till cataract gets mature.
Many young patients suppose they get cataract they can’t wait for another 20 years to get their surgery done. So whenever they we face difficult in our day-to-day activities we have to get surgery done. Secondly many patients this is try to postpone their surgeries for some reasons like some say we have marriage in our house, can we post one for few months, we want to go for some trip can we postpone film for few months best thing is uh to get surgery uh done in time not to postpone it till cataract gets mature and then you have to rush to hospital to get it done. See now nowadays because of covid since last year we are in covid last one year we are in covid. And many patients were supposed to get their surgeries done last year they are still waiting to get covered over and do their surgery. So we are seeing so many patients with mature cataract nowadays just because they have postponed the cases, uh covered we don’t know uh slowly it will reduce but we can’t wait for our cataracts to mature and land up in some complications. So ideally wherever possible for you you can go to your own doctors or your nearby centers and get your surgeries done, if contract is quite advanced.
Conclusion
Cataract surgery is a safe and effective way to improve your vision. Most people recover quickly and experience few complications. Recovery times vary depending on the type of surgery you have, but most people can expect to see an improvement in their vision within a few days. It’s normal to take between 4-6 weeks to recover completely after cataract surgery, although the exact time varies from person to person. If you have any concerns about your recovery, please contact your eye care team.