Posted , 6 users are following.
I am going in for my initial consultation for cataract surgery possibly both eyes, My company offers excellent short term disability (STD) benefits if expected time off is more than 7 days. I work in IT so mostly online on the computer. How much recovery time should I be looking at considering I may have to operate both eyes?
0 likes, 5 replies
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phil09 frank40866
Posted
I took two days off. The day of the surgery, and the next day when I had a follow-up exam. Worked as per usual after that with no difficulties.
I'm also on the computer all day. Of course, our eyes and our recoveries may differ.
RonAKA frank40866
Posted
I think in most cases you should get much of your vision back the same day as the surgery. Vision may be a little blurry the next day and the eye may be sensitive to light. An eye exam is normally done 24 hours after surgery. Wearing dark glasses the day of the surgery and possibly the next day may be helpful. It may take as long as 3-5 weeks for the surgery to have full impact on your vision, but in most cases you should have functional vision in a couple of days. About the only after care required is to wear an eye protective patch at nights for the first week. And there will be a need for eye drops 4 times a day for the first week and once a day for another two weeks. The exact drop treatment varies from surgeon to surgeon. There should be no need to take off more than 2-3 days as long as you are able to work with vision in one eye, and somewhat less than good vision in the operated eye.
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If the accuracy of your refraction correction is important to you, to potentially avoid need for glasses, I would suggest you wait 5 weeks minimum between surgeries. This is to let the first eye fully heal so you know what the actual outcome for refraction is. Predicting the outcome is not a perfect science and there is likely to be some error. Once the outcome is accurately known the surgeon should be more accurate on the second eye.
trilemma frank40866
Edited
Maybe 6 hours to be good enough to drive, but the vision may take a couple weeks to adjust to its long-term prescription. It will be fairly close to where you will stabilize at the next day, I expect. There are probably differing opinions.
Guest frank40866
Posted
In most cases you're fine by the following morning
RonAKA frank40866
Posted
To minimize the disruption to your work and personal life, you need a plan for the steps in doing cataract surgery in both eyes. As I mentioned in an earlier post it is not a good idea to do both eyes at the same time, or the second eye before it has had time to heal and you have an accurate refraction. In addition to that you need to think about how you will correct vision with one eye operated and one eye not done. If you do not have a strong prescription you may get away with removing the lens from eyeglasses used before surgery in the surgery eye. Or, if the prescription is stronger you may need to wear a contact in the non operated eye. But, this is all dependent on what your targets for vision post surgery are. If you target distance vision then that eye will likely need near vision correction for computer work. The other option is to target near/computer vision with the surgery. The bottom line is you need a plan to manage the transition from pre to post cataract surgery.