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Mr Mukhtar Bizrah
King Edward VII’s Hospital
How long does it take to recover from cataract surgery?
Mr Mukhtar Bizrah, consultant ophthalmic surgeon explains the short recovery time and fast improvement in vision following surgery. For more information or to arrange a consultation please make an enquiry.
Transcript
After cataract surgery, at the end of the procedure, we place a shield on the eye and that shield is transparent, so you can actually see through it and then you go home. And we would like you to start the eyedrops and obviously, take your surgeon's advice but it's usually either on the evening of the cataract surgery or from the next day. And you will notice that your vision is improving fairly quickly actually. So, you know, some people in the evening the vision is already better and others, it's next day or the day after. The progress or the visual recovery is very much dependent really on how big the cataract is, if you have any conditions such as diabetes. So, I wouldn't worry too much if the vision doesn't improve significantly within 48 hours or so. But to put it in a nutshell, the recovery is very quick. After the procedure, we don't really expect you to have much pain. You know, you might have some tiny bit of soreness or foreign body sensation in the eye, but that's it really. And as long as you use the eyedrops, the recovery is very quick and the large majority of patients are very happy with the outcome, fairly quickly.