Refractive surgery

Does laser eye surgery hurt?

Your question

Does it hurt, during and after the procedure?

Our answer

During surgery, no: the eye is anaesthetised with drops and the procedure is painless. Afterwards it depends on the technique. LASIK and SMILE cause little or no pain and vision returns within hours to days. Surface laser (PRK) causes pain for about two to three days, controlled with medication and a bandage contact lens.

During: drops, not injections

Laser refractive surgery is performed under local anaesthesia with eye drops, as a day case. There is no injection and no general anaesthetic. The procedure itself is painless; what it requires is your cooperation — keeping the eye open and fixating on a light, guided aloud by the team throughout.

The dominant sensation is not pain but brief pressure while the eye is stabilised, with vision fading for a few seconds. Time in theatre is measured in tens of minutes, most of it preparation.

After LASIK or SMILE

The official SFO sheet is explicit: the operated eye is little or not painful, visual recovery occurs “within a few hours to a few days”, and care is limited to drops.

The first hours often bring a gritty sensation, watering and light sensitivity, which settle during the day. The single most important instruction of that period is: do not rub. The cornea has just been thinned, and is therefore mechanically weaker.

After surface laser (PRK)

This is the real difference between the two families of technique, and it deserves to be said before surgery rather than after. The same SFO sheet states that the operated eyes are painful for about two to three days. Pain most often peaks between the twenty-fourth and seventy-second hour, then subsides as the epithelium closes.

Two measures accompany it: analgesic treatment, and a bandage contact lens worn continuously for a few days, removed once the surface has healed. Vision returns gradually from the first week — more slowly than after LASIK.

PRK is not a fallback: it is preferred for certain thin or at-risk corneas, where it is the safer option. The price is this period of discomfort.

After cataract surgery

The Haute Autorité de santé recommends topical anaesthesia — drops or gel, with or without sedation — as the first-line technique. Surgery usually takes fifteen to thirty minutes, lying on your back, looking at the microscope light. The procedure is painless.

So is the recovery “in the vast majority of cases”, with occasional grittiness or stinging from transient surface dryness, and floaters in the first days.

What must be reported immediately

After any eye surgery, pain that appears or worsens, a drop in vision, or a suddenly red eye in the following days are not matters for watchful waiting: contact the team that operated on you, without waiting for the scheduled appointment.

Sources

Updated 26 August 2026