If you have ever taken time off work to recover from a cold or sporting injury, you probably watched copious amounts of television, movies, connected with people over your phone, checked and double checked Facebook, and spent time playing games on your computer. Unfortunately, recovering from your PRK or LASIK surgery will be a little different. You will still need to let your body heal and recover, but your eyes will be more sensitive to light, limiting the amount of screen-time you are typically accustomed to. Luckily, smartphone manufacturers have built-in accessibility settings for the visually impaired that you will be able to use to your advantage during your recovery from laser eye surgery.
Setting Up Voice Controls
Voice controls can help you send messages, set alarms and reminders, perform searches, as well as other tasks. Android users can set up Google Assistant, a program that responds to your voice and can perform these tasks. Similarly, iPhone users can use Siri. We recommend enabling this feature so you can easily set reminders throughout the day for when it’s time to take your eye drops.
Backlight Options
Most people know that you can control the brightness of your screen from the display settings of your smartphone. But dimming the backlight may not be enough for dealing with light sensitivity post eye surgery. In these cases, you can invert the colours of your phone, so the backlight is completely black, and the text is white.
For Android users you’ll go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Vision -> Screen Colour Inversion.
If you own an iPhone, you can also invert colours by going to Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Display Accommodations -> Invert Colours.
It’s a good idea while in the Accessibility settings to check out the other options available to you that will help you access your phone when recovering from your eye surgery.
Screen Readers
This setting will allow your phone to read all of the text displayed on your screen out loud. For example, It will read your text messages sent to you by friends and family, checking to make sure your Lasik surgery went well. You’ll also be able to respond with a text message if you have voice controls set up on your device.
Looking at screens and reading after your eye surgery causes unnecessary eye-strain. Both iPhones and Android devices have screen reading programs named VoiceOver and TalkBack respectively. You can turn these functions on in the Accessibility settings area of your phone. It will take you through a tutorial on how to use the program too, which will help you get accustomed to its features.
Increase Text Size
When your eyes are feeling better, you can start reading on your screen again. To make this process easy and to limit any eye-strain, increase the default text size on your smartphone. This is another feature you can find in the Accessibility settings of your phone.
We recommend setting up your phone before your PRK or Lasik surgery, that way you can get accustomed to the features and won’t have to worry about any set-up after your procedure. Recovery times after eye surgery can vary depending upon the procedure performed, with PRK usually taking longer than Lasik. But before you know it, your vision will improve, and you’ll be back to doing all the things you love. So stop delaying, schedule your free consultation for Lasik surgery with BoydVision. We will be with you every step of the way.