Lens replacement: How long does it take to recover from lens replacement?

So, how long does it take to recover from lens replacement surgery?

Well, the day of the surgery, the pupil is still quite large from the drops that we have to put in to access the lens. It can take some patients a couple of days for that pupil to come back down to normal size. While the pupil is large, there are some light scattering effects and some blurring. So let’s say it takes a couple of days for the vision to crisp up. If I operate on Tuesday, normally by Thursday people are enjoying quite a good level of vision. Then day by day, it carries on improving such that for most patients a week following surgery, they are really seeing very well indeed. As with so much of the work that we do, it almost looks like it’s all finished, the eyes are white, the patient is seeing really well down the chart but it can take three to six months for the eye to be completely settled down.

We use anti-inflammatory drops for the first four to six weeks just to complete that settling down process, but a little bit of dryness that’s quite common after cataract surgery or lens replacement surgery can take about six months to get back to normal. It occurs because of the tiny incisions that we place at the edge of the cornea that interrupt a few of the cornea nerves and those nerves have to regenerate up to three to six months period, just to bring the sensation back to normal and tear film back to normal. So a couple of days for most of the recovery and a few months actually for all the settling down to finish.