Your eye will be very blurry. This is because of the local anaesthetic drops and antibiotic ointment used during surgery. It will take a while for these drops to wear off so expect the first 24-48 hours to be blurry. You will also have an eye shield over your operated eye which will partially obscure your vision. The eye shield protects your eye from contamination and also prevents you from inadvertently interfering with your eye. Wear the eye shield for at least the first 24 hours and over night for the first week.
You will have drops to take on your return home, as instructed by your surgeon.
Two days after your procedure takes place, you will receive a call from a member of our clinical team to check that your recovery is going well.
Driving immediately after surgery is not advised. The use of local anaesthesia and the impact of surgery on your vision would make it difficult to drive safely. Extra light sensitivity and a loss depth perception (because binocular vision is limited) will also affect your ability to drive.
By around 72 hours post surgery, your sight will have settled down and become much clearer. You should be back or nearly back to driving standard. Don’t worry if it takes longer – everyone is different.
Your vision will improve over the next few days but you may experience some side effects after cataract surgery. The most common are sensitivity to light, grittiness, watering, blurred vision or double vision. These symptoms are common and usually dissipate over the first few weeks.
If you experience any of the following symptoms, please call Vision Scotland promptly so we can make sure there is no cause for concern : Vision loss, pain that persists despite the use of pain medications, flashes or multiple spots in front of your eyes, nausea or vomiting.
If you are having cataracts removed from both eyes, there will usually be a gap of a week or two between each surgery. This gives the first eye a chance to recover before the second eye surgery. This gap is a little strange for most people as one eye will have restored sight but the other will have it’s old vision.
If you wear spectacles, you can arrange for your optician to remove the lens from the spectacles of your operated eye. This allows you to continue to wear your glasses with the correct lens strength for the un-operated eye. Once both eyes have been operated on, you will have a post operative check up with your optometrist who can assess your new prescription and recommend the best option of glasses for you post surgery.
Over 90% of our patients achieve 6/6 (20/20) vision after cataract surgery.
Our surgeons have collectively accumulated over 45 years of experience carrying out cataract surgery. We take pride in achieving excellent outcomes with the majority of our patients no longer needing glasses for distance wear. Depending on the type of lens chosen, trifocal lenses reduce the need for reading glasses and all other near vision tasks.
Complications in cataract surgery are rare. Almost all our patients will experience some dryness of the eyes for a few weeks after the operation and generally this resolves over time. However, eyes are very individual and successful surgery in one eye does not always predict straightforward surgery in the other. Underlying conditions can complicate the surgery, and any complications that do arise in surgery will be dealt with during the operation where possible.
Similarly, if a cataract is dense and does not afford the surgeon a view of the back of the eye prior to surgery, removing the cataract may reveal conditions such as macular degeneration which will reduce the vision achievable.
Occasionally the visual outcome is not as perfect as we would like and a laser top up operation will be offered once the eye has had a chance to settle down – usually after the first six months. This is a short procedure to bring the prescription closer to the desired outcome and will be free of charge in the first year.
Another straightforward complication can be the development of a post capsular opacity, known as a PCO which can develop at any time. This is a cloudy layer of scar tissue that can form on our new lens and give you similar symptoms of blur and glare as your initial cataract. These can be fairly common and can be simply treated with a procedure called YAG, involving a laser to clear the vision. If you experience and report this in the six months, this will be treated free of charge.
Your hospital has robust processes in place to protect you and other patients from covid. Three or four days before cataract surgery you will either be asked to come into the hospital for a PCR test or you will be sent a test to carry out at home.
After taking your covid test you will be need to self isolate prior to your operation.
Lateral flow tests are unfortunately not accepted forms of testing pre surgery.
