When can I drive after refractive exchange surgery?

After your refractive lens exchange surgery you will be booked back in to the clinic to see your surgeon for an initial follow-up appointment. At the clinic the team will carry out an assessment and will advise you on whether you should begin to drive again based on whether your eyes meet the legal driving standard.

The majority of patients are back to the legal driving standard within a few days of their surgery. However, we advise you wait until you feel completely comfortable before resuming driving.

After your surgery, we strongly urge you to ask a friend or family member to drive you home or get a taxi as although your vision may seem quite clear immediately after your surgery, some blurring is likely to occur for several hours post-surgery. Additionally, during your surgery anaesthetic eye drops are used and as these wear off after your surgery its likely your eyes will be increasingly sensitive to light and may feel a little irritated, this may cause them to ‘water’ which, in turn, will impact your vision.

Furthermore, if you are an extremely nervous patient it may be the case you are given a mild sedative before your surgery begins which is likely to make you a little drowsy and will influence your reaction time, making driving dangerous.

We recommend you wear sunglasses when travelling home after surgery to prevent you from unintentionally rubbing, touching or scratching your eyes in the hours after your surgery and wear clear eye shields in bed for the first night after surgery.

If your driver’s licence states you that you ‘require corrective lenses’ to drive, this will of course no longer be the case following your surgery and as such when the time comes to renew your licence, this restriction can be removed. We would be happy to provide a report for renewal purposes if needed.