I asked my doctor when I could drive after the bypass; he said I could when I didn't use the pain pills anymore. I understand that varies person to person, but I would like to have some clue.. ??

Every surgeon is different. I was told a week if I remember correctly. I remember popping down to my grocery store mid week two & feeling wrecked when I got home. My concentration was pretty crappy, I got weary quickly & my blood pressure was very low so it may also depend upon your recovery & when you feel ok to drive.

I didn't take pain pills once I was home from the hospital, I had sleeve, by the way, but the reason that I couldn't drive is because the seat belt rubbed on my incisions. I drove about a week after surgery.

I never took the pain pills. Drove about two weeks later.

I had VSG on a Wednesday morning and drove for 15minutes on the Saturday (airport to home), I had no need to drive after that for two weeks (covid quarantine for two weeks as I missed a deadline to return to my home state, not that I would have driven much in those couple of weeks if I hadn't been in quarantine). There was some mild discomfort but no more than sitting on the plane for a couple of hours. I felt a lot worse getting in and out of bed.

I hadn't had any painkillers since the Thursday, though I did same some panadol on the Saturday for the plane flight.

Follow your surgeon's instructions and go my your own comfort levels if you need longer than the recommended time until driving.

I never took any of the pain pills, including during my hospital stay. Never had one second of pain. So I could drive right away.

I was told to wait at least 24 hours after I stopped taking pain pills, but I never took any pain pills (I had almost zero pain from the surgery). I think I waited about a week to drive, though. I didn't have much energy and slept a lot the first few days - plus I had my husband here to run errands for me.