Can You Wear Contacts After LASIK? Yes, but Not Right Away

Can you wear contacts after LASIK if one eye still isn't sharp once you're back home, or if you miss your colored lenses? In most cases, yes. Not in the first weeks, though, and not with your old lenses: wait until your surgeon clears the eye, expect vision to settle over three to six months, and have a new lens fitted to the reshaped cornea.

Hello, I'm Dr. Kim Sun-young, Medical Director of Healing Eye Clinic in Gangnam, Seoul, and the cornea is my specialty. One doctor stays with you here from the exam through surgery such as Clear SMILE LASIK and the aftercare, and once you've flown home you can check in with us by email or video call. A medical interpreter for English is provided at no extra charge.

If you're already home and one eye is bothering you, send your surgery date and what you're noticing on WhatsApp, with the one question you most want answered.

Why can't you put your old lenses back in?

A contact lens is cut to sit on one particular curve, the way a lid is made for one particular pot. Laser correction for nearsightedness flattens the center of the cornea, so the curve your old lenses were made for is gone. The power is wrong too: a -6.00 lens on an eye that now measures -0.50 will blur everything.

There is a second reason in the early period. The surface is still healing. With flap-based LASIK the flap edge is sealing, and with a small-incision method the incision is closing. A lens rubs on that surface, and putting it in and taking it out means fingers on the eye several times a day.

So the leftover box in your bathroom drawer is the one thing I'd ask you not to reach for, even to test how well you see.

Can you wear contacts after LASIK in the first three months?

For the first days and weeks the answer is no. The FDA's patient guidance says not to resume wearing a contact lens in the operated eye, even if your vision is blurry, and puts the time for vision to stabilize at up to three to six months. The one exception is a protective lens that a surgeon places and removes after a surface procedure such as LASEK. That lens is a dressing, and you don't handle it yourself.

Between those points, I'd rather you not wear lenses by choice until your prescription has stopped moving. A lens fitted on a number that is still changing will be the wrong lens a month later.

If you want the wider picture of what each stage allows, I've set it out in what you can do each day of LASIK recovery in Korea.

Can I wear contacts after LASIK for astigmatism, reading or color?

Yes to all three, once the eye is stable. If you've been asking yourself, can I wear contacts after LASIK when the leftover problem is a little astigmatism, a soft toric lens usually handles it. A small remaining nearsighted number takes an ordinary low-power soft lens. In your forties, when reading gets harder, multifocal lenses or a single reading-power lens in one eye are both options on a treated cornea.

Colored lenses are medical devices like any other lens. They need the same fitting, and they tend to let less oxygen through, so I'd keep them for occasions.

When the corneal surface is uneven, a soft lens drapes over the unevenness and copies it. That is where rigid gas permeable or scleral lenses come in, because they hold their own shape and let tears fill the gap underneath.

One thing to tell whoever fits you: say you've had LASIK before they measure anything. The standard curvature reading is taken near the center of the cornea, which is now flatter than the rest, and a first lens chosen from that number alone often sits loose. Ask whether they fit eyes that have had laser surgery, whether they will map the whole cornea, and whether you can try a lens before ordering a supply. The fitter doesn't have to be anyone connected with us. Those three questions work in any city.

Six weeks home with one eye still soft: how I'd reason

Say you started at about -8.50 in both eyes, had surgery in Seoul, and have been back in Toronto for six weeks. The right eye is crisp. The left reads a line or two less on the chart, and your optometrist measures -0.75. You drive at night for work.

At six weeks that number may still move, so I wouldn't fit a lens to it or plan a second procedure around it. A thin pair of glasses for night driving covers the gap for now. Have the eye measured again at around three months, and once more after that.

If the readings agree, you have three routes. You can leave it alone. You can wear a low-power soft lens, fitted to the new shape, for the hours you drive. Or you can ask about an enhancement, which is only possible if enough corneal tissue remains, and an eye that began at -8.50 has already used more of it. I've written separately about LASIK enhancement and what happens if vision drifts back.

Infection, dryness and a lens that won't sit still

Dryness is the reaction most people notice. Corneal nerves take months to recover after laser surgery, and until they do the eye makes fewer tears. A lens floats on that tear layer, so in the first months it can feel gritty by evening or slide off center when you blink. This usually eases as the nerves recover, though how fast differs from one eye to the next.

Infection and risk: what to watch for

Infection is less common and more serious. The risk comes mostly from habits: sleeping in lenses, swimming or showering in them, topping up old solution. Daily disposables remove the case and the solution from the picture, which is why many fitters start there.

Some people should wait longer before any lens:

• anyone still using prescribed post-op drops
• eyes with dry patches on the surface at the last check
• vision that changes from morning to evening
• any redness or soreness that hasn't been explained

LASIK Revision Surgery in Korea: What the Exam Must Show go further into what usually comes next.

What to do from home, and when to contact us

Before you leave Seoul, ask for a copy of your records: the surgery date and method, your prescription before surgery, and the corneal map. A fitter at home can work from those. We prescribe enough post-op medication to take with you and explain the ingredients, so a local pharmacy can match them if needed. Cabin air on the way back is dry, and I cover that in when flying after LASIK is safe.

Once you're wearing lenses, these signs mean the lens comes out and stays out: pain, redness that is increasing, sensitivity to light, discharge, or vision that gets worse instead of better. See an eye doctor near you the same day. Keep the lens and its case instead of throwing them away, because they can be tested if an infection is suspected.

Then tell us. You can reach us by email or video call, and if you need care locally we provide a referral letter for your eye doctor at home. The contact details are on the Healing Eye Clinic English page. The Korean-language page of our main clinic describes the same procedure: Clear LASIK at Healing Eye, in Korean.

Needing a lens now and then after laser surgery is not a failed operation in my book. Some eyes, especially those that started with a high prescription, land a little short, and a well-fitted lens is a reasonable way to live with that. Nothing about this has to be settled in the first months. What decides which lens will sit well is the shape of your cornea today: how flat the center is and how even the surface.

If you'd like to talk it through, send your surgery date, the method you had and your latest prescription from home on WhatsApp, and ask whether it's too early for you to be fitted.

— Dr. Kim Sun-young, Medical Director