If there is one question that we’ve frequently heard, it is about aftercare with laser surgeries. Most people want to know whether it is okay to drive following a laser eye surgery.
Driving immediately after laser eye surgery is not usually advised. This is why you need to arrange for your transportation home before the surgery. Don’t worry about how to prepare for this; we have covered all the needed information about driving from treatment to aftercare in this guide. Read more about laser eye surgery aftercare below.
How to prepare for your laser eye surgery
After you have booked an appointment for the eye correction treatment, you will need to decide whether a personal driver will take you to the hospital or bring you back or if you will use public transport. When we finish the procedure, we strongly kick against people going back alone. If you want to go by public transportation back home, then we advise you have a person that will go with you. Also, use over ground transportation.
However, it is best to arrange for someone to take you from the hospital after the treatment. If this person comes with you before the treatments, you can benefit from the free parking we have at our clinic. They will have no trouble packing their vehicles until you are done.
Most of our clinics are located in the heart of the city, so it will not be difficult finding a cab back home.
What is the waiting duration before driving after laser eye surgery?
If your treatment was the LASEK or LASIK surgery, you are legally not permit to drive except the ophthalmic surgeon has completely cleared you.
So, before receiving this clearance, a follow-up appointment will be given after your procedure. On this day still, you will need to inform a friend for pick up and drop or hire a cab or public transportation. For this aftercare meeting with your surgeon, they will assess and monitor your eyes to know the progress and tell you whether you can drive or take off longer time to recover.
When your doctor evaluates your eyes and proves that you are completely recovered to handle the car steering wheel, you will give access to drive. This may take some days for many people. However, each individual is different and have a different recovery rate. For some people, this may take close to a week.
What to do after you have been cleared to drive
When you’ve being licensed to drive post-surgery, you still need to keep some important things in mind.
When faced with bright light, you could experience glare a few weeks post-surgery. This will make it slightly challenging to drive at night because the glares can occur when you see bright and oncoming headlights.
So, before driving at night, it is best to be a passenger during a night journey to see if you will be comfortable driving yourself.
This ‘glare’ issue will improve sporadically within some weeks after your treatment. You will constantly have this improvement for the initial three months.
You should remember that though this eye surgery can notably improve your reading vision problem, it is not a miracle solution. So, you may still need to depend on glasses for specific tasks like reading and driving.
What does life feel like after the laser surgery?
You could be wondering what you may need to do or avoid after laser eye surgery. Below are some things you might want to consider post-surgery in order to have improved eyesight.
- When showering, ensure that soap or water doesn’t get into your eye for the first week after the surgery
- You may need to take two days to a week from work to recover from the surgery properly
- Wait for at least three days before doing exercises that do not impact your eye, like using treadmill, and one week before doing general exercises like yoga, aerobics, etc.
- Avoid intensive contact sports like cricket, soccer, and the likes for about six weeks after your surgery
- If you dive, then wait for at least three months before going into depth deeper than 30 feet
Book an appointment with us
There are a lot more to learn about what you can do or avoid after laser eye surgery, and you can best get this from the experts. Get in touch with Optimal Vision to discuss laser eye surgery and how to obtain the treatment from our clinic.
