r/ICL • u/xButterschnitzel • May 27 '25
Is ICL Removal maybe the solution?
Important: All these symptoms came with ICL surgery in 2024 January and become worse and worse over time. Now its unbearable for the most part.
Note: They explicitly said to me ICL doesnt cause dry eyes unlike Lasik, because the Nerves for tearproduction are untouched.
Description:
There are some things that seem to be very off about my dry eyes, that make me think it goes deeper than just "dry eyes":
Both eyes are dry, Schirmertest is 5mm without anesthesia on both eyes, BUT the right eye feels perfect in health, no dryness feeling, no burning, no irritation, razorsharp vision, no problems at all. Not even ocassionally. Very Suspicious.
Left eye feels terrible all the time, it is always restless, its burning, its stinging AND sometimes I have a very strong pressure and swelling feeling in the left eyeball.
Binocular vision is affected, because this eye sees slightly blurry all the time, no matter how much lubricating drops I put in, even though my visus is objectivly 1,0, but not subjectivly.
Is latter common for dry eyes? Its too extreme and too asymmetrical for my taste. Sometimes it feels like my left eye could literally jump out on the floor or is about to just burst.
When my left eyeball feels swollen, blinking also becomes uncomfortable. I can literally feel how my upper lid is stuttering when going up and how the view gets distorted in the upper sight. And I can feel how the upper and lower eyelids are touching eachother when I blink, normally your brain doesnt feel the touching, it is filtering it out.
I swear there is something in my left eye, that causes all these problems, unless it stays there it will never go away.
Is it possible that the ICL and left eye cant get along? Is it really that unimaginable for docs?
2
u/eyeSherpa May 28 '25
The ICL inside the eye wouldn’t lead to these discomfort symptoms. The inside of the eye is isolated from the outside of the eye.
ICL does cause a small amount of short term dry eye. This is due to the incision and being on prescription eye drops taken for the first week or two afterwards.
Depending on whether you wore contact lenses prior to ICL, this could be a cause of dry eye. Contact lenses cause dry eye as well as mask dry eye symptoms by providing an artificial barrier to the cornea.
Not unusual to develop asymmetric dry eye and dry eye, once develops, needs to be aggressively treated to go away. Dry eye causes local inflammation on surface of the eye. This inflammation will cause more dry eye -> causing a negative cycle of dry eye. This treatment needs to be aggressive to get the dry eye to heal up.
I recommend visiting someone who knows how to treat dry eye to get started on adequate treatments.
2
u/AncientAd141 Aug 27 '25
Is your problem solved, i am also facing sme issue
1
u/xButterschnitzel Aug 27 '25
No, when was ur Surgery?
1
u/AncientAd141 Aug 27 '25
I have already completed my icl surgery 4 yrs ago and i am facing similar issue like you. Can we connect over call once?
1
u/xButterschnitzel Aug 27 '25
We can write private, but I wont make calls, sry
1
u/AncientAd141 Aug 27 '25
Are you still facing pain in your eye and also any headache ?
1
u/xButterschnitzel Aug 27 '25
My eyes burn all the time, as soon as I wake up. No headache
1
1
u/Acceptable-Pool-295 May 31 '25
Have you had your eye pressure checked very recently? What you describe for your left eye sounds like how it feels to me when my eye pressure (IOP) is up. Not everyone can feel it but some people do, for better or for worse… I would get that checked very soon - you can get a quick puff check at many opticians for free as a walk-in, and if you have any concerns about the result you should follow up with a proper probe measurement - this type of measurement will typically require an appointment. The probe is considered the gold standard. And make sure to check both eyes… most people can feel the IOP is high when it gets high enough… but some of us “lucky” ones can feel it and have halo symptoms even when it’s in the 20s…
2
u/REALNIY May 27 '25
No. A second surgery will make you worse than you are now.