Question: How long where you restricted from driving after surgery?

Until my 1 week followup with my surgeon.

11 minutes ago, Orchids&Dragons said:

Until my 1 week followup with my surgeon.

Thank you!

I remember driving about 5 days after surgery out of necessity (It was a very short distance about 5 -10mins) I did not enjoy it. I drove an SUV & had a tough time getting in and out. I guess it depends on a number of factors but definitely ask your Team and go with your gut.

My doctor said after I stopped taking pain killers...however, I drove about 5 days after. The bad part was getting in and out of the car since my car is kind of low to the ground.

I didn't have any driving restrictions, but then again I never took any pain pills. I had no trouble.

I didn't have any driving restrictions and drove 2 days after the surgery. please note: I was not on any narcotic pain medications. You should not drive while taking narcotic pain medications.

Just had to be off of my pain pills which I only took for one day

My surgeon's instructions were "When you've been off the Hydrocodone for a couple of days, and you're not in pain". I only took the Hydrocodone long for 2-3 days, and then switched to just straight up Tylenol as needed.

Basically: 1. Don't drive high. 2. Don't drive if you can't do things you need to (e.g. blind spot checks) without pain or delays.

My doctor said that he didn't want me driving until my 2 week appointment, but that legally I couldn't drive until the narcotics were out of my system for 24 hours.

That said, my abdomen was pretty sore for a few weeks . Sure, I could have driven. But if anything out of the ordinary occurred and I needed to quickly stop or accelerate, I'm not sure I could have. So much of your leg movement comes from your core. So, I really didn't feel safe driving for 2 weeks. And I extended it to 3 because I could work from home that third week.