How Many Days Rest After LASIK Surgery?

LASIK eye surgery is one of the most common procedures to correct refractive errors like myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), astigmatism (abnormal curvature of the cornea), and presbyopia (a condition that is characterized by the inability of your eyes to focus on nearby objects). This significantly minimizes your dependency on visual aids like glasses and contact lenses. These laser-assisted procedures are revolutionary techniques in providing a permanent solution that enables your cornea (a transparent part of the eye that covers the iris and the pupil, allowing light to enter inside) to focus the images clearly onto the retina (a light-sensitive layer of the nerve tissue that receives images and sends them to the brain via the optic nerve). 

Conventional LASIK surgery is a minimally invasive (there is less trauma) and quick procedure with faster recovery and fewer postoperative complications. Recovery is a crucial aspect that helps determine the outcome of your laser eye surgery, where proper rest, a nutritional diet, and following the post-op instructions that aid in faster healing.

Read on to know more about Conventional LASIK eye surgery and the amount of rest required for faster healing and quick stabilization of vision.

What is Conventional LASIK Eye Surgery?

Conventional LASIK eye surgery is a laser-assisted refractive procedure that permanently improves your vision, reducing your dependency on glasses and contact lenses. This LASIK surgery corrects your refractive errors like myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism by reshaping your cornea. A microkeratome creates a thin corneal flap of uniform thickness to correct the corneal irregularity, and an excimer laser is focused on the eye and reshapes the cornea. This facilitates proper refraction (bending) of light through the cornea, which can effectively focus images onto the retina. Laser eye surgery is gaining momentum owing to its quick procedure, faster recovery, and fewer postoperative complications.

How Many Days of Rest is Required After LASIK?

Resting after surgery is important to ensure a safe and quick recovery. There could be a risk of complications and infections after a Conventional LASIK eye surgery due to the corneal flap created. Pushing yourself too much, too hard, and too quickly can cause immediate or long-term complications. However, it is important to try and move around as much as possible, and follow your surgeon’s advice on getting active again. This will encourage your wound to heal, and your vision to stabilize quickly. Follow the given protocols that ensure you have proper rest post Conventional LASIK:

• Resting immediately after the surgery

• • • Even though the LASIK surgery is minimally-invasive (involves less pain, and trauma), it may cause some discomfort and distress once your anesthesia wears off. 
    • Immediately after your surgery, you are likely to experience mild pain, discomfort, itching, redness, pricking and burning sensation. Not resting your eyes can increase your anxiety and stress levels, which may cause your blood pressure to shoot up.
    • It is important you rest for at least 1 hour before you are allowed to go home.
    • During this time, your pulse rate, heart rate, respiration, blood sugar and BP (blood pressure) are monitored.
    • Your surgeon checks on you before you are allowed to go home.

• Resting at home on the day of your surgery

• • • Resting after going home is very important for wound healing. Sleep and maps are the most effective ways of resting.
    • Try and take long naps to rest your eyes and refrain from straining them.
    • Get yourself at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night, which ensures quick healing. 
    • After surgery your body works hard to heal, hence if you do not rest and sleep well, your immune system may be compromised and would have trouble fighting post-op infections, which would delay the wound healing.
    • However, remember that you do not require any bed rest after a LASIK eye surgery.

• Resting your eyes is the key factor for quick recovery

• • • Take your pain medications and eye regularly drops as prescribed because failure to do so will poorly impact your quality of sleep and rest.
    • Avoid excess screen time since this may put unnecessary pressure on your eyes. Resting your eyes would help the corneal flap heal and prevent post-surgical complications.
    • Avoid reading for at least 24 to 48 hours to prevent excess strain on your eyes.
    • Avoid driving for a minimum of 2 days, especially at night, since your eyes are likely to be over-sensitive to bright lights, causing glares and halos around the light.
    • While you are resting and sleeping at night it is important you use your eye shields to prevent any accidental trauma to your eyes.

• Resting your eyes for 1 to 2 weeks after surgery

• • • Avoid cooking for 1 to 2 weeks since the heat and steam while cooking can irritate your eyes. Hence it is advisable not to spend long hours in the kitchen, and take breaks to rest your eyes in between your cooking sessions.
    • Avoid strenuous exercises and activities for at least 2 to 3 weeks which put excess strain on your eyes and also cause flap-related complications like flap dislodgement. You can however continue with mild exercises like brisk walking, and once you are back home make sure to rest for a brief period to relax your body.
    • You can gradually resume your routine activities with intermittent resting. However, moving around as and when possible is important and not idle for longer durations is important.
    • When outdoors, you must use tinted and wrap-around sunglasses to avoid excess sun exposure, since this may cause corneal scarring. Make sure you rest once you are back home to soothe and calm your eyes from the excess sun exposure and heat.

• Resting your eyes 3 to 4 weeks after your surgery

• • You can gradually get back to your active lifestyle, and the amount of rest required also minimizes.
  • However, it is important that you refrain completely from certain activities like swimming and using eye makeup at least for 4 weeks post your surgery. It enables you to minimize the risk of post-op infections.

Takeaway

Recovery after Conventional LASIK eye surgery takes around 4 to 6 weeks. Rest, sleep and a good nutritious diet are crucial for wound healing and faster recovery by boosting your immune system. Having well-rested eyes after LASIK surgery will keep our minds and body focused and reduce our anxiety and stress levels. Your eye surgeon can guide you about what activities are allowed and what is restricted to allow proper rest to your eyes for quick healing and stabilization of your vision.

If you have any queries related to the procedure or what to expect during recovery, consult our team of skilled and highly qualified eye surgeons at Medfin. 

Disclaimer: 

The content on this site is the copyright of Medfin and is intended for informational and educational purposes only. This should not be considered as a substitute for medical and surgical expertise. Results from any treatments or surgeries are subjective to an individual patient and the type of procedure/ surgery performed. Please seek professional help regarding any medical concerns. Medfin will not be responsible for any act or omission arising from the interpretation of the content present on this page.