Blog: My ICL Experience

Just had my eyes checked with my regular annual optometrist. Despite still having 20/20 right eye and a 20/30 left eye, she is recommending reading glasses. I'm not sure if this is a money making tactic, but I'm refusing at this point... I see fine, but I do notice the difference (improvement) with the sample glasses she provided to help me understand the difference. It's a minute one, but it's definitely there as someone who reads a lot. So no glasses for now - I'm holding out! It's too soon. haha. I'm not looking forward to bifocals, which will likely happen within the next 10+ years of my life! The weather has been beautiful & sunny - and I love putting on my Ray Bans everyday, instead of some terrible pre-ICL alternative (when I had glasses)!

Today marks exactly 1 year since I - and 2 others I met in the pre-surgery "green room" - signed our eyes away and let ourselves go under the knife. What a journey it has been - and one that I do not regret - despite the few tiny bumps & issues along the way. Though I will always fear early onset cataracts, the potential contraction of distance between the ICL and natural lens, [insert other risks] - these are worries that only time will tell. Thanks for the questions. Hope you all find your answers!

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...