Recovery from cataract vs retinal detachment surgery

March 17, 2022 8:42 AM

My 70+ year old parent had a detached retina a few months ago, and recover from the surgery to repair it was tough on them in terms of not being able to do house work, walk the dogs, multiply eye drops multiple times a day. She now requires cataract surgery. For those with experience with both, is recovery likely to easier than for retinal repair, or similar?
posted by sizeable beetle to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

Best answer: I've had a few friends deal with detached retinas and the recovery always seemed pretty harrowing. My mom had cataract surgery a few years ago and she recovered pretty quickly, and was amazed at the improvement in her vision.
posted by cakelite at 9:11 AM on March 17, 2022

Best answer: Cataract surgery is much easier to recover from than a detached retina. Source: my mother has had both surgeries.
posted by cooker girl at 9:15 AM on March 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I had cataract surgery before my retina detached, but cataract surgery is a breeze compared to the detached retina. The reason is that, to complete the retinal reattachment, you have to hold your head in a certain position for about a week. That means no major positional changes and, while nothing about the process is painful at all, the disruption to one's life is extensive. For the cataracts, your eye is covered with a patch for the first 24 hours, then IIRC you sleep with a plastic shield over that eye for about a week. There are a lot of eye drops of different sorts, but it's not a huge hassle.
posted by DrGail at 9:59 AM on March 17, 2022

Best answer: I am just recovering from cataract surgery (one eye only) which was 1 1/2 weeks ago. It may depend a little on the exact procedure, but in my case there's scarcely a question of a "recovery".
The surgery itself is weird, but short (like, 20 minutes per eye), and doesn't hurt (ok. Almost).

My eye was a tiny bit sore on the day of the surgery, and I'm still not supposed to rub my eyes or do headstand-type of yoga or whatnot, but otherwise the only really annoying thing is that one's glasses don't fit, and one needs to wait a few weeks before letting the optician take new measurements. I have to apply two types of eyedrops three times each day. That's pretty much it.

Edit: no eye patch for me, no shield while sleeping. This is in Sweden if it matters. I actually drove home myself because only one pupil had to be dilated.
posted by Namlit at 10:19 AM on March 17, 2022

Best answer: I've had surgeries from both, and same eye even--retinal detachment when younger, and the cataract that developed later was a common side effect from the procedure used. This was in the early 1990s, so techniques of course may have changed since then, as a bit of caveat. But there was at least a week of physical unpleasantness, on top of the anxiety of waiting to see if that eye was simply blind now, and then a couple months of extremely stir-crazy-aggravating limited mobility very-strong-recommendations (for good reason!).

Cataract surgery a year or two later was shockingly quick, and I barely remember aftercare needed--a few days of eyedrops, but aside from that, practically painless both physically and mentally by comparison. Probably telescope the recovery a bit because of course otherwise-healthy youth is a helluva leg up on recovery speed and quality, but still the upshot is, parent can rest assured cataract surgery is a very light thing.
posted by Drastic at 10:50 AM on March 17, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks all! It is actually me that needs reassuring so I appreciate your responses.
posted by sizeable beetle at 1:11 PM on March 17, 2022

Best answer: I know you've already marked this as solved, and I'm mostly just agreeing with everyone else, but speaking as someone who's had both the difference is really night and day.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:50 PM on March 17, 2022