Cataract Surgery Recovery: What to Expect, Day by Day

Short answer: Recovery from cataract surgery is quick for most people. Your vision is blurry on the first night, then usually much better the next day. At Focus Vision, our optometrist checks your eye on the day of surgery, so you don’t need to come back the next day. Most people are back at work after about 2 days. You use eye drops for about 4 weeks, wear an eye shield to bed for the first 3 nights, return to the gym after 1 week and swimming after 4 weeks. Your eye keeps healing for 4 to 6 weeks (AAO), and if you need glasses, you get them about 6 weeks after surgery. Recovery after refractive lens exchange is the same.

Watch: your recovery from cataract and lens replacement surgery

You’ll watch this video in the recovery area of the hospital after your operation. It explains what to expect and how to look after your eye in the first weeks.

This second video explains your 1-month review, and how to look after your eye over the next three to four months and in the long term.

Cataract surgery recovery timeline

When	What to expect
The day of surgery	You’re fast asleep for the operation, with a specialist anaesthetist. Our optometrist checks your eye before you go home. Take the shield off after 2 hours and start your drops.
The first night	Very blurred vision, with halos around lights, while your pupil is still dilated (12 to 18 hours). Rest, and wear the shield to bed.
The next day	Vision is often very good. If your cataract was dense, it can stay blurred for another 24 hours. No clinic visit is needed.
From 24 hours	Driving, once the sedation has worn off and your vision meets the legal standard.
About 2 days	Most people are back at work.
1 week	Back to the gym and sport.
About 4 weeks	Eye drops finish. Swimming is fine again. Your 1-month review.
About 6 weeks	New glasses, if you need them.
3 to 4 months	Vision keeps settling, especially with an EDOF or multifocal lens.

For how long the operation itself takes, and your day in hospital hour by hour, see how long cataract surgery takes.

The day of surgery and the first night

At Focus Vision, you’re fast asleep for cataract surgery, sedated by a specialist anaesthetist, with numbing drops and no needles around the eye. See can I be asleep for cataract surgery?

• Your eye is checked before you go home. Our optometrist checks your eye on the day of surgery, so there’s no visit the next day.
• Someone needs to take you home. Because of the sedation, don’t drive, sign important documents or drink alcohol for 24 hours.
• Take the shield off 2 hours after surgery and start your eye drops straight away.
• Expect very blurred vision that night. Your pupil stays dilated for 12 to 18 hours after surgery, so you’ll see halos around lights, whichever lens you chose. This is normal.
• You’ll be tired. Most people have a snooze. It’s normal for your eye to feel scratchy and to water, and you may have mild discomfort as the anaesthetic wears off; paracetamol is fine for this. See is cataract surgery painful?
• Wear the shield to bed. It stops you rubbing or pressing on your eye while you sleep.
• The next morning, your eyelids may be a little stuck together. This is normal: clean them gently with a fresh tissue moistened with cooled boiled water.

Eye drops: about 4 weeks

Your drops settle inflammation while your eye heals (AAO). To protect against infection, an antibiotic is injected into the eye at the end of the operation. In a European trial of more than 16,000 cataract operations, leaving out this injection was linked to about five times the risk of infection inside the eye (ESCRS, 2007). You use them for about 4 weeks, following the schedule on your aftercare sheet.

• Wash your hands before putting drops in, and don’t let the tip of the bottle touch your eye.
• Leave 5 minutes between different drops, so the first isn’t washed out. Some drops sting for the first few days; this is normal.
• Keep using any other eye drops you already use, such as glaucoma drops.
• Your lubricating drops continue after the others finish: see dry eye below.
• Prescribed drops are bought separately; they aren’t included in the surgery price.

The eye shield: the first 3 nights

Wear the clear shield to bed for the first 3 nights. During the day, you don’t need it after the first 2 hours, though some people find it more comfortable to keep it on.

Don’t rub your eye for 4 weeks (healthdirect; AAO). If you rub it by accident, don’t worry unless it causes significant pain or blurred vision.

You don’t need special dark sunglasses. Bright light may feel startling for a few weeks, because your eye got used to the duller view through the cataract.

Going back to work, screens and reading

Most people are back at work after about 2 days. Screens, reading and watching TV won’t harm your eye, though your eye may tire sooner for the first week or two.

How well you read without glasses depends on your lens. With a monofocal lens set for distance, you’ll need reading glasses; with an EDOF or multifocal lens, many people read and use a computer without glasses. See monofocal vs EDOF vs multifocal lenses. Until your eye has settled, plain reading glasses from a pharmacy (+2.00 or +3.00) are fine as a stopgap. Don’t rely on them long term: your new lens is precisely engineered, and cheap readers often have plastic lenses with optical flaws. See your optometrist for good-quality reading glasses.

Driving after cataract surgery

Don’t drive for 24 hours after surgery, because of the sedation. For most people, this is what decides when they can drive: vision is often very good by the next day, though if your cataract was dense it can stay blurred for another 24 hours. After that, you can drive once your vision meets the legal standard for driving (Austroads) and both eyes are working comfortably together. For most people, this is anywhere from 24 hours to a few days after surgery.

Between operations, your two eyes can see quite differently if you wore strong glasses: the operated eye sees well without glasses, while the other still needs them. That can make driving feel unbalanced and even make you a little unsteady on your feet. Some people pop the lens out of one side of their glasses for this time; others leave their glasses off. If you have private health insurance, your eyes are done on separate days, usually from the next day to 7 days apart. See cataract surgery on both eyes on the same day for how this works.

Exercise, swimming and everyday activities

Activity	When
Walking, light housework, cooking	Straight away
Showering and washing your hair	Straight away, as normal; keep your eyes closed when you face the shower
Desk work and screens	After about 2 days
Eye makeup	After 1 week
Gym, running, sport	After 1 week
Contact sports	After 4 weeks
Swimming in a pool, the ocean or a spa	After 4 weeks

Water in pools, the ocean and spas isn’t sterile, so waiting 4 weeks lowers the chance of infection while your eye heals.

How your vision changes over the first weeks

• The first few days. Vision is usually much clearer than before surgery, though it can be blurred for a day or two after a dense cataract. Colours often look brighter and whiter, because the yellowed cataract has gone.
• A flickering light at the edge of your vision is very common for a few weeks, and you may notice floaters you already had much more than before. Both settle down over time.
• Halos around lights at night are more noticeable with EDOF and multifocal lenses. They usually become less bothersome over the first months as your brain adapts to the lens (Rampat & Gatinel, 2021).
• Each eye heals differently, so one may recover faster than the other.
• 3 to 4 months. Vision keeps settling during this time, which the 1-month review video explains.

Dry eye: almost everyone gets it

Almost everyone gets some dry eye after cataract surgery, and studies show the tear film can stay disturbed for up to three months (Ta et al., 2025). It usually lasts 8 to 12 weeks and is often worst 3 to 6 weeks after surgery. Because surgery affects the nerves of the surface of the eye, it rarely feels “dry”. Instead you may notice:

• vision that fluctuates, and is clearer just after you blink
• tired eyes or heavy eyelids you want to close
• watery eyes, because the eye makes too many watery tears and not enough oily ones.

Use your lubricating drops 4 times a day for the first 4 weeks, then 2 to 3 times a day for 2 to 3 months. The more you use them, the faster the dryness settles. If you run out, you can buy more at a pharmacy. Dryness can need more treatment if you had dry eyes before surgery, have rosacea, or are a post-menopausal woman.

New glasses: about 6 weeks

Depending on your lens, you may not need glasses at all. If you do, wait about 6 weeks after surgery before having your eyes tested for new glasses, so your eye has settled and the prescription is stable.

If a small prescription remains once your eye has settled, laser fine-tuning is free for two years under our enhancement policy. See laser eye surgery after cataract surgery.

Your 1-month review

At about 1 month, we check your vision and how your eye has healed. If you live outside Brisbane, we arrange this check with your local optometrist. The second video above explains this visit and how to look after your eye in the long term.

Travelling from regional Queensland, interstate or overseas

Many of our patients travel to Brisbane for surgery, including from Far North Queensland, interstate and overseas. We help you get home as quickly as we can:

• Stay in Brisbane for 1 or 2 days after surgery.
• Then head home. We arrange your 1-month check with your local optometrist.
• If both eyes are being done, talk to us when you book, so we can plan the dates around your travel. See cataract surgery on both eyes on the same day.

When to call us urgently

Call us straight away on (07) 3239 5005, or the after-hours number on your aftercare sheet, if you have:

• significant or increasing pain
• vision that is getting worse, rather than better
• a lot of redness
• a sudden shower of new floaters, or a shadow or curtain across your vision.

If you can’t reach us, go to a hospital emergency department.

Problems are uncommon, but these need treating quickly (for every risk and how often it happens, see cataract and lens replacement surgery risks):

• Infection inside the eye (endophthalmitis) is rare: about 6 in 10,000 operations in studies since 2010 (Shi et al., 2022).
• Swelling at the back of the eye (macular oedema) can blur vision a few weeks after surgery. In a UK study of nearly 82,000 eyes, it occurred in about 1.2% of eyes with no risk factors, and was more common in people with diabetes (Chu et al., 2016). It is treated with drops.
• Retinal detachment is uncommon. In a national Korean study of over 2 million eyes, the risk was 1.2% over 5 years, and about 80% of detachments happened in the first year. The risk was higher in younger people, men and short-sighted eyes (Kim et al., 2019). A sudden shower of new floaters or a shadow across your vision needs checking the same day.

Months or years later: cloudy vision again

The thin capsule that holds your new lens can cloud over months or years later. It isn’t the cataract coming back. It is cleared with a quick, painless laser. This is more common in younger patients: 37% of people under 65 at the time of surgery needed one within 10 years (Lundqvist & Mönestam, 2010). If your surgery was at Focus Vision, the YAG laser is done at no cost, with no time limit. See YAG laser after cataract surgery.

Plan your cataract surgery with Focus Vision

Your own surgeon, Dr Brendan Cronin or Dr David Gunn, performs your whole operation in Woolloongabba, Brisbane, and our team looks after you from your assessment to your aftercare. To plan your surgery, book an assessment or call (07) 3239 5005. See our cataract surgery page and what cataract surgery costs.

References

1. American Academy of Ophthalmology. Cataract surgery: risks, recovery, costs. EyeSmart. aao.org/eye-health/diseases/what-is-cataract-surgery
2. healthdirect Australia. Cataract surgery. healthdirect.gov.au/cataract-surgery
3. Austroads. Assessing Fitness to Drive: vision and eye disorders, general assessment and management guidelines. austroads.gov.au
4. Ta H, McCann P, Xiao M, et al. Dry eye post-cataract surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Ophthalmol. 2025;25(1):18. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39806338
5. Rampat R, Gatinel D. Multifocal and extended depth-of-focus intraocular lenses in 2020. Ophthalmology. 2021;128(11):e164-e185. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32980397
6. Shi SL, Yu XN, Cui YL, Zheng SF, Shentu XC. Incidence of endophthalmitis after phacoemulsification cataract surgery: a meta-analysis. Int J Ophthalmol. 2022;15(2):327-335. doi.org/10.18240/ijo.2022.02.20
7. Chu CJ, Johnston RL, Buscombe C, et al. Risk factors and incidence of macular edema after cataract surgery: a database study of 81984 eyes. Ophthalmology. 2016;123(2):316-323. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26681390
8. Kim J, Ryu SY, Hong JH, Chung EJ. Incidence and risk factors for retinal detachment after cataract surgery in Korea: a nationwide population-based study from 2011 to 2015. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2019;257(10):2193-2202. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31388742
9. Lundqvist B, Mönestam E. Ten-year longitudinal visual function and Nd:YAG laser capsulotomy rates in patients less than 65 years at cataract surgery. Am J Ophthalmol. 2010;149(2):238-244. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19926068
10. Endophthalmitis Study Group, European Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgeons. Prophylaxis of postoperative endophthalmitis following cataract surgery: results of the ESCRS multicenter study and identification of risk factors. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2007;33(6):978-988. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17531690