Cataracts
How long is the recovery after cataract surgery?
Duration 0:58
Professor Andrew Luff is an Ophthalmic Surgeon and Founding Consultant at Sapphire Eye Care. He shares what you can expect immediately after your cataract surgery, and what factors might affect your recovery.
Professor Andrew Luff is an Ophthalmic Surgeon and Founding Consultant at Sapphire Eye Care. He shares what you can expect immediately after your cataract surgery, and what factors might affect your recovery.
Make an enquiryTranscript
Recovery is rapid. People will go home having had just surgery with drops with a plastic shield on the eye. So the vision is very blurry that day, but by the next morning, it’s normally starting to improve, and within say 48 hours, most people can see relatively well. Of course, how well you get on depends upon your other eye. Are you having to wear glasses for the other eye? You may be imbalanced, but once you can see a number plate at 20 metres, you are fine to drive. We ask you not to indulge in contact sports or to swim for two weeks, but otherwise, life can pretty much go on as normal. You will be using drops, and these are four times a day with more than one drop to start. That decreases after a couple of weeks, but we help you understand how to put the drops in, and very, very rarely is there any more than minimal discomfort after cataract surgery.
