ICL

I have told many people that I'm getting ICL eye surgery this month.  I've done a lot of research about it online (I'm always a little unsure about how accurate the stuff on the internet is...I take it with a grain of salt because I know that many things I read are just anectodal; experiences of the writers/bloggers who may or may not have the facts correct.)  But, I have found it helpful to read others' blogs, detailing each part of the ICL experience, so I thought that I'd write about my own experiences with ICL.  So here goes....I'll try to be pretty detailed, so forgive me if this is lengthy.

First of all, about my eye history.  I first got glasses in fourth grade and I've been wearing contacts since 7th grade.  I've worn both gas permeable and soft contacts.  (I HATED the gas permeable; I wore them for less than a year.)  I'm lucky that I don't have any astigmatism and I've always had full 20/20 correction with my contacts.  Right now my prescription is -6.0 in my right eye and -8.0 in my left eye.  I asked my ophthamologist today about what my vision is in terms of 20/20...am I 20/500?  20/900?  I had no idea, except I knew it was bad.  He said that 20/200 is legally blind, and that they don't really label it beyond that.  He said that I was well beyond that, and for me it would be more accurate to say that I'm 10/something...meaning that I can't really see anything from 20 feet away.  He said for me it would be more like holding up a hand, a foot away from my face, and asking how many fingers are up.  In other words, I'm pretty dang blind.

I've wanted to do LASIK for years now, but I've heard that it's wise to wait until I'm done with pregnancies because the hormones can possibly change my prescription.  So, as soon as Bree was born, and we knew our family was complete, I started thinking about LASIK.  In November of 2011 I met with an optometrist to see if I was a good candidate.  When he saw how bad my prescription was he suggested that LASIK may not be the best fit for me.  He said that LASIK is generally for prescriptions up to -6.0ish.  He told me about ICL and I was instantly very interested.  For those of you who don't know about it, it stands for Implantable Collamer Lens, or Intraoccular Contact Lens (I've heard both).  Basically, the surgeon inserts a type of contact lens into the inside of your eye, behind your iris (so it's invisible to anyone looking at you), and in front of your eye's natural lens.  The advantages to it are that they don't remove any corneal tissue (like they do with LASIK or PRK), and it's completely reversible should any problems arise.  I really liked that.  I know that lots of LASIK patients (especially with higher prescriptions) suffer from chronic dry-eye, glares, or halos.  Plus, with my prescription being on the upper level of LASIK correction, the probability would be that I may still need glasses or contacts.

So, my optometrist suggested I go and see Dr. Cionni at the Eye Institute of Utah.  He said that he's world-renowned and has an excellent reputation for successful ICL surgeries.  At the Eye Institute they even said that Visian ICL (the company who makes the actual ICL lenses) sends their camera crews to Salt Lake to film Dr. Cionni doing the surgery, then they use the film to help train other surgeons.  That made me feel like I'd be in good hands.  Also, they said that this surgery is similar to cataract surgery and Dr. Cionni has performed something like 35,000 cataract surgeries himself...so apparently he's pretty good!   They also said that of all their vision correction patients (including LASIK, PRK, and ICL) the ICL patients report the greatest levels of satisfaction with the results. 

After all this great news, I was in.  I was so very excited about the thought that I might not need glasses or contacts ever again!  I have been super excited, but also very anxious and nervous--this is my eyesight that we're talking about!  And, of course, as with all medical procedures, they have to disclose all possible outcomes--no matter how slim the possibility is--including complete loss of vision.  So when they tell you that, hey, who knows?  You might be blind after this!,  it's a little scary.  But I'm still in.  My surgery is scheduled for Feb. 23rd and I'm counting down the days excitedly.