Blog: My ICL Experience

Went in for my final follow-up yesterday. I'm seeing 20/20 in my right eye still and 20/30 in my left eye. Again, I was offered corrective laser surgery to make it all 20/20, but together, I'm already seeing 20/20! Obviously I declined. I am still thinking about getting a second corneal tattoo - but the chances of actually following through are very minimal. My vision isn't perfect, but it's good. And compared to glasses: the full life experience has been fantastic. I continue to travel the world, live abroad and relish every moment being glasses free. Things are good - I just need to keep following up with my regular optometrist and hope none of the risks identified actually happen to me in the long-term. They measured the pressure in my eye (good) and also measured the distance between the ICL and my natural lens one final time - if anything doesn't look good (not enough space), they will give me a call. Otherwise, I'm done! That's all folks. Thanks for

Hello all. Thanks for all of your questions and comments. It has been inspiring to hear from you and to see my blog web analytics climb higher from visitors around the world! I continue to enjoy glasses-free life - I often forget that I have bionic eyeballs! I chose not to go through a second corneal tattoo and to just live with the glare I have - and continue to experience. I did notice my brain adjusted a TINY bit. Now I only notice the glare every few days... I have to really look for it. However, dark restaurants with bright light sources can create a lot of glare/halo-ing. But only indoors. Never a problem on the street (though I had bad streaking pre-ICL...so it's there, just not worse than before). My severe dry eye also exacerbates the problem. Nothing unfixable with some eye-moisturizing solution drops. In 2-3 months, I will hit the 1 year mark - and the end of free follow-up treatment period. A reminder that the "life-long guarantee" is not really the case

Had my 3 month follow-up today - really 5 months after my actual surgery. Things are the same. Pressure was 18 today with my right eye still 20/20 (yay!) and my left eye still 20/30 (boo!). 20/20 - more or less - together. My dry eyes affect the quality of my vision as well, I find. They took a photo of my eyeballs / ICL today to measure the chamber depth and to double check the positioning - a check to make sure there's still proper spacing between the natural lens and the ICL. I have to wait a week to hear back on my results with the "actual" doctor reviews my file and measurements. They said I didn't need to make any more appointments and that I'm pretty much dismissed. But I think I will insist on the 6 month and 1 year. I paid for it, dammit! I told them my corneal tattoo pretty much didn't work (though again, I'm not really that bothered by it) and that I still have strong halos at night only around really bring and specific light sources when I&

So Monday marks my 3 month since my surgery and although my 3 month check-up is not scheduled until the 4 month mark, I thought I'd give a quick update. Vision is great. I couldn't be happier being glasses free with 20/20 vision (both eyes together). The tattoo however, didn't really work. I still see the white line glare in super bright situations as previously described before. I can't tell if it's slightly more faded or not. It really doesn't bother me that much though as it is very, very faint and appears in less than 5-10% of my day. I have to lift my lids to an unnatural state in order to see them. But I do notice them, especially in our age of smartphones: we're always looking down at our phones and glancing up to make sure we don't run into people. It is that moment of glancing up without moving your head that forces your lids above the iridotomy holes. That's where the glare comes in. I plan on asking my doctor at the 4 month point what ha

So I can finally say I have a tattoo - even though I've never really wanted one. I fear the pain - so naturally, I got two! On my eyeballs! lol. Oh the irony that is life... Day 3 and my eyes are returning to normal. The dry, scratchy feeling after getting the tattoo is pretty much gone. Just back to my normal dry eyes. *grumbles* I have noticed a side-effect that I haven't talked about before. I did mention that I already had halos and streaks of light pre-ICL because of my crappy eyes, but I noticed it is much worse in only one specific instance. When I'm looking at a small, concentrated speck of light in the pitch black. Specifically, around alarm clocks, the light in your smoke detector... that's pretty much it. In the middle of the night, when everything else is pitch black, the halos around these objects are really bad! I can now understand why some people, who have it much worse, would be very disappointed in their ICLs. But since I can still see the time cle

Had my corneal tattoo procedure performed today. After the Dr. checked my eyes, I lay down in what appeared to be a LASIK surgery room. They put a ton of numbing drops in my eyes, patched up one eye so they could work on the other. They taped my eyelashes down, inserted the specula (instrument that holds your eye open) and proceeded. Felt a bit of poking - didn't hurt, but was more uncomfortable than the iridotomy. Maybe even more pressure than the ICL itself. It took almost as long. I think the instrument (I swear it looked like a needle) is designed to remove or scratch the surface of your cornea so the ink will absorb into the layer just underneath. The Dr used the LASIK microscope to perform the procedure, but no lasers are involved. After performing the same procedure on both eyes, it was done and I was back in the room where he could observe the work. Apparently the iridotomy holes are completely covered - even he can't see through them anymore with the optical instrument

Quick note to say all is well. I'm finally getting used to life without glasses - though I still sometimes reach for them on my face, when it's not there. Phantom Glasses. Makes me smirk with a bit of smugness haha. My corneal tattoo procedure got pushed back: though I should have it done within the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned and sorry for the delay, readers! There is no 2 month check-up, so I'll have more to report back at my "3 month" appointment in June (technically 4 months, but 3 from the last check up - yes, confusing, I know). I am going on my first vacation post-op before my 3 month appointment: very excited to experience travelling without my usual massive eye care contact kit + spare glasses, etc. One other fun thing I tried recently: you know when people with 20/20 vision ask to try your glasses? Your "crazy" prescription? And when they do, they're like, "Whoaaaaa... OMG you must be blind!" Yeah. That. Used to get

Good news and ok news. Unfortunately, I'm still 20/30 in my left eye, but my right eye is 20/20 now! And together the doctor said I'm seeing 20/20! Yay! He said I could get LASIK to correct the left eye to 20/20 or get a 0.75 prescription, but I declined. If I'm seeing 20/20, why would I go through that? Especially with the dry eye which I'm already dealing with... Cannot make it worse with LASIK (dry eye is a common side effect). So yes, I'm 20/20! (with the left eye slightly blurry when I look at text from a distance while covering my right eye). The only lingering issue is the white line glare I have from the iridotomy procedure in certain situations. They're going to do the corneal tattoo procedure to fix it on April 1. Quick procedure apparently.  Fingers crossed. Will update then! In other news, I went sunglasses shopping on the weekend... debating between the Ray Ban New Wayfarer's or a pair of Diors. Oh Visian ICLs... Thank you. *beams* :

It has been just over two weeks since my surgery - and just over a week since my post-op 1 week follow-up - which means I am officially done my crazy antibiotic eye drop regiment and all restrictions are off! Vision is good/great. Right eye is very clear (though probably still 20/25 I'm guessing). Left eye is still a little less clear than my right (guessing I'm still stuck at 20/30). Together, the doctor said they work at 20/25, so I'm happy with them. I still get phantom glasses syndrome - randomly grabbing at my face for my glasses to take them off, or push them up, when they're non-existent. I feel like I always have to excitedly tell someone when that happens! I threw out my contacts, donated my leftover Optifree solution & stored my old glasses. Felt amazing and cathartic. My vision gets a little blurry only when I have dry eyes. New side-effect revelation: I do feel like I see a bit of streaky/haloey aberrations around light sources in low-light situation

I had my 1 week follow-up appointment yesterday. Super fast. Kind of rushed actually. The surgeon is too busy with... well, surgeries to pretty much ever see you again, so all the follow-ups so far have been with clinic/institute staff optometrists/ophthalmologists. Going into the appointment, my eyes were super irritated from a long and stressful day. So "bad" news first: my left eye did not improve over the course of the week: it is still stuck at 20/30 (which is honestly fine). Good news is that my right eye improved to 20/25! (even though I personally felt like I couldn't read some of the smaller lines on the eye chart as well as I could last time) Pressure was 14 (normal - bit higher than last week, but apparently it fluctuates even by the hour). I'm afraid 20/30 is what I'll be stuck with given the other blogs I have read (e.g. that what you see in your first week is pretty much what you'll be stuck with). I still have another week to go with the antibio

RIGHT EYE (Surgery Day 1): Woke up freaking out at 6am. Ate a protein bar - didn't want to be hungry, but also not too full. Arrived at 7am and signed away my life (i.e. consent form). Found out that "Lifetime Commitment" to your eyes as advertised has caveats: touch-up correction is only free within the first year - it's $500 if you want or need it after that. After a short while, I was called into a back room with two other patients. I was happy to learn that they were both undergoing ICL as well. It sounded like they had higher prescriptions than me (in terms of diopters: one had hyperopia the other was only getting Toric in one eye - I was getting Torics in both), but it was a nice heading in to the operating table to have a team of people who were going through the same thing as me in succession. We were all fed a steady stream of 8-15 drops in the eye being operated on by a very nice nurse. We also got a pill to help us "relax" (it did not work on me

Needless to say, I am completely freaking out now. Surgery is at 7AM tomorrow. I started Vigamox drops in my right eye on yesterday and left eye this morning (they are doing my right eye first tomorrow, followed by my left eye the next day). Since my last post, I have stopped doing research, watching ICL procedures on YouTube, etc. Since I had my iridotomy done, which is permanent, and made the decision to go forward, I figure reading more won't change my mind or the outcome at this point. I'm really excited to finally be able to see without glasses, but to be honest, it hasn't fully hit me yet. Today is my last day wearing glasses (!!!), which I've worn for 23 years! I keep thinking about how I take for granted and accept that I just cannot see in many situations (shower, while falling asleep, etc.) and now, how distracted  I might be by actually being able to see after this procedure! Iridotomy update: Now that I've had some time to deal with my iridotomy side

Reasoning: Like many others, I have decided to begin documenting some of my experiences in my journey toward getting ICLs (Implantable Contact Lenses or Intraocular Collamer Lenses). Felt I should give back after "taking" in all of everyone else's experiences, both good and bad. I too feel that there isn't a lot of information out there about ICL experiences in particular: we're a small population of people, since most choose LASIK or PRK. I'm 31, male, about -6/-7 (ish) in each eye with moderately high astigmatism. Thin corneas, dry eyes, high myopia made me not a candidate for LASIK. My severe dry eye has also lead to corneal abrasions while wearing contacts and so I am no longer allowed to wear contacts either (or else I would consider forgoing refractive surgery completely, given all the risks). Reading about ICL's theoretical reversibility (though it's meant to be permanent unless there is an extenuating circumstance, while the iridotomies are