Six and a Half Years Later

It's been in the back of my head to update this blog for a long time. I remember how frightening the whole experience was and how hard it was to find people with updates any further than a year or so after the surgery. The problem is I didn't really have anything to report, because I honestly haven't been to an eye doctor since a second eye exam about a month after the surgery in 2013. Today I changed that and finally went to see an eye doctor, the biggest reason for that was because my family has a history of glaucoma and I really just wanted to make sure that wasn't creeping up on me. The other reason was that I know I'm not at exactly perfect vision (and I wasn't right after the surgery) and it's been long enough that the idea of occasionally wearing glasses to see better at night doesn't really bother me. Plus I assumed the prescription would be low enough that the lenses wouldn't be an inch thick like they once were. I moved since I got the eye surgery done, So I walked into the new eye doctor today thinking that I had gotten the rarest eye surgery in the world and they wouldn't have a clue what they were looking at. Turns out in the last couple years this surgery has gotten a lot more common for people who can't get lasik, because this doctor was not only familiar with it, but had referred multiple patients to get it done. That kind of surprised me because it feels like doing a google search on the surgery today still only turns up articles as recent as 2015 or so. The end result is that everything appears fine, after looking at my eyes normal and then dilated, I was told that the lenses are looking good and still in place. My eyes are still extremely healthy, and it all looks normal. I mentioned to the doctor that I feel like I get dry eye in my left eye as a result of the surgery, and she said it was actually impossible for ICL to affect that. I admit that my surgeon told me the same thing after the surgery, but I always sort of had my doubts that he was waving my complaint off because he didn't want the liability. It was a lot of money to pay to then come out of it with a affliction they claimed ICL couldn't cause. I believe this doctor, because she has no reason to tell me otherwise, that what's more likely is my eyes are just more sensitive to that now. I'll get into it more in a bit, but it's truly rarely an issue. As of today, I still don't NEED glasses, but I have a mild astigmatism in both eyes, so I can wear them just to make things a bit sharper. The prescription is something like -1 in the left eye and -.75 in the right, which is basically nothing as far as I'm concerned. I'm still going to get the glasses, because there are times when I'm in a meeting, or driving somewhere that I'd prefer to have the best vision possible, but I don't consider it a failure of the surgery. My astigmatism was there right after the surgery and I can still read at 20/20 if I'm using both eyes together. So that's the update from today, but while I'm here I'll share some general thoughts looking back at the whole process. First of all, I absolutely would go back and do it again if given the chance. Going on a trip and not having to worry about bringing your contacts, solution, contact case, and glasses, is a great feeling. I do think they are a little generous on the whole "wake up and be fully healed and able to see" thing. Not only did it take a day or two for me to see completely (some of that being the awful pressure issue that happened.) There was also quite a bit of time where I would wake up in the morning and not be able to see out of the left eye, it would look a little fuzzy like I had slept with my contacts in or something, but it would go away after a few blinks. That said, I haven't woken up with that issue for at least two or three years now. That last issue I would bring up, that I remember really freaking me out for the first couple weeks is the glare lines. As much as they say that laser iridotomy (the holes they punch in the tops of the iris on both eyes) doesn't have any effect, it definitely created a line of glare in certain situations. It's when you're looking at a bright light and blink your eyes for a brief second there's this line that goes bottom to top across your vision. As scary as that sounds I promise your brain correct it super fast and the second you're able to stop thinking about it, you'll never notice it again. Also since this involves holes in the iris I have to imagine it's drastically different depending on your eye color. I have light blue eyes for reference, but based on some (extremely) light research, it sounds like darker eye colors behave different. All in all I would say this isn't something you should be afraid to do if you're considering the surgery. Well over 6 years later my eyes are completely fine and have no real side effects. I hope this helps someone out there make a better informed decision, and I'm sorry it took me so darn long to write an update.