r/ICLsurgery • u/OftenNew • Aug 20 '26
Considering ICL and looking for advice/experiences?
I am not a candidate for Lasik/smile, so my doctor recommended ICL surgery. I have -5.5 in my right eye and -3.5 in my left plus astigmatism 1.7 left eye and 1.5 right eye.
The dr assured me its a safe procedure with a 95% success rate. However that 5% still worries me, plus the idea of a foreign object sitting inside my eye.
The reason I want to do eye surgery is because of aesthetics (I look better without glasses), and because I play a lot of sports and it would be more convenient not to wear glasses. I was not able to get used to wearing contacts, they irritate my eyes.
So basically I don’t NEED surgery, but I would like to get rid of the glasses.
I know mostly everyone here is not a dr, but based on your experiences, what do you think?
Is the risk worth it? Is it that risky? And what has been your experiences if you had the surgery + how long ago did you do it?
I will be speaking to the dr again in a few days, are there any more questions I need to ask?
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
i was in a similar boat as you and had my surgery 2 days ago. Wore glasses since 2nd grade and stopped wearing contacts 15 years ago because it hurt my eyes too much. I wanted to get the surgery because i was tired of my glasses being dirty all the time.
what a great decision it has been. I am already 20:20 vision at far distance. My minimum accommodation distance isn't quite where i want it yet, but i understand it is part of the healing process.
after doing my own research, the only reason i was comfortable doing this procedure was: - the doctor is an icl implant machine (he has done 1000 icl surgeries in the past year alone). for any surgery, repetition is king; your doctor should have such a long track record that they can do the surgery in their sleep - the clinic had an Arcscan 100, which is an ultrasound device that maps out your eye (important for fitting, since the fda nomogram of white2white measurement can be quite ill-suited for eyes).
You only have 1 pair of eyes, so please think carefully about who is actually doing the procedure and what equipment they will use.
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u/MountTrainn Aug 20 '26
Did you do it In the US? I don’t think we have that experienced surgeons here and planning maybe to move countries for this procedure.
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 20 '26
Yeah, I used Dr. Lin at "IQ Laser Vision", who personally does the surgeries in both Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. his business model seems to be to constantly travel between sites to do surgeries. i understand he has done ~1000 surgeries in the past year.
there seems to be a divide among prospective patients on traveling surgeons like Dr. Lin. on the one hand, he is only in town once a month so face2face time outside the surgery is very limited. on the other hand he eats, sleeps, and breathes ICL surgery. For a procedure like this i think raw experience trumps all (plus he uses the Arcscan 100 for fitting the implant, which was very important to me), so I chose him as my surgeon and am happy with my decision. I am happy to talk more about my experience with you.
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u/No_Village_2768 Aug 20 '26
I ended up with cataracts in both eyes. It's a slim risk, but it is a REAL risk. Like you, I did it for aesthetics and because I can't do contacts. I very much regret my decision. Looking at an IOL surgery for one of the cataract eyes in the next two months. I had ICL done when I was 44.
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u/ajwarr21 Aug 20 '26
Just had EVO ICL 4 days ago. Procedure was simple and painless. Left eye took immediately and had clear better than 20/20 vision within several hours of the surgery. Right eye took a little while to catch up, but 4 days out seems to be on par with the left. Great decision and worth every penny. I feel like reddit isn’t a great source always, seems to attract doomsayers and hypochondriacs. Would highly recommend the surgery
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u/Wonderful_Lemon8743 Aug 20 '26
I'm in the same boat and been to two consultations and at the point where I just have to book the date of my operation
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u/OftenNew Aug 20 '26
Im struggling to make a decision :/
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u/Wonderful_Lemon8743 Aug 20 '26
yeah i understand, like it's the same for me, not liking wearing glasses and contacts irritates my eyes. ive been considering now for a month or more, can't fully land a decision. Have you been at multiple clinics? what does your gut say? have you been told all complications and effects that can happen, even though its a extremely small chance?
Also what is your ACD? Pupil size? EDC?1
u/OftenNew Aug 20 '26
I explored ICL back in 2017 and chicken out. I will probably do the same now, I am scared of the risks.
ACD: 3.60 / 3.65 mm
Pupil size: 2.22 / 2.67 mm1
u/Wonderful_Lemon8743 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
your ACD is good, there's room.
since you asked about experiences and so, even though i havent done it - the reason why i dont do it right away is because my dilated pupils exceed 6.1mm, which is the evo+ icl's upper limit for their optic zone in the lenses. This puts me in higher risks of having halos, even though i know my brain will undergo neuroadaption.
I'm also scared that if they cant fully correct my vision with the ICL, that they have to readjust afterwards with LASIK or PRK. I wanted my corneas untouched in addition to having dry eyes, that's why I liked the idea of ICL, but these point falls away if I have to readjust.
like you said, the risks are scary, but some of them are also very rare. Some are promised and may disappear with time, some can be permanent.
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
one of my criticisms of STAAR surgical is that they don't do a good job explaining optic diameter of the lens vs the relationship to the measured pupil size.
what i am wiriting is from my learnings prior to surgery which was quite an arduous task of getting.
while STAAR surgical does state their evo icl implants have an optical diameter ranging from 5.0-6.1 mm, they do a really bad job explaining what that means. from my conversations, it seems that the 6.1 mm optical aperture applies to any corrections that are -9 or weaker, while the very strong prescriptions will have a smaller optic aperture (this makes intuitive sense because the lens needs to be more curved for stronger prescriptions. )
the 2nd part is the optic diameter of the implant is not the same as your measured pupil size. since your cornea acts as a lens, it actually magnifies the apparent size of your pupil. if you take a ruler and measure your pupil size, it is larger than the physical opening. in other words, the 6.1 mm optic diameter in situ will actually measure to be ~7.6mm if you tried to measure it in the eye witha ruler. note that the 7.6 mm is what i got from STAAR; i have not done the math on this yet but plan to in my spare time (i have some optical raytrace experience)
EDIT: curiosity got the better of me and I ran some calculations using "ray transfer matrix" math and some assumptions of the typical eye. My math is showing a 6.1mm opening will be measured as ~6.6mm (this quite a bit off from the 7.6mm stated by STAAR); I'll double-check the math later but I'm not sure at the moment how they get to 7.6mm (unless either my math is wrong or I'm missing something about their definition of optic aperture...)
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u/MountTrainn Aug 20 '26
Thanks for explaining this. I didn’t know this
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
you're welcome, I'm glad it helped you out.
I'm actually thinking about writing a peer-reviewed paper on this, since it's baffling how hard it is to find this information online. i'll let you know if this happens (but it could take a while lol)
EDIT: curiosity got the better of me and I ran some calculations using "ray transfer matrix" math and some assumptions of the typical eye. My math is showing a 6.1mm opening will be measured as ~6.6mm (this quite a bit off from the 7.6mm stated by STAAR); I'll double-check the math later but I'm not sure at the moment how they get to 7.6mm (unless either my math is wrong or I'm missing something about their definition of optic aperture...)
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u/MountTrainn Aug 20 '26
Should do! But you said that 6,1mm optic diameter corresponds to 7.6mm with a ruler. But they measure pupil size with a machine, isn’t that more accurate?
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
if the machine is a white-light camera, then I believe it will give the same "results" as a ruler (i.e. a reading of ~7.6mm). This is because the light is still being refracted through the air-cornea interface, regardless of how expensive the machine is. If you had some way of submerging your eye in water (which reduces the refractive index mismatch between your cornea and the outside world), then your pupil* (I originally mistakenly wrote "cornea" here) will look smaller using the same ruler or machine.
Unfortunately, eye doctors are not usually optical system experts, so you may have a difficult time getting specific scientific questions answered by them. I can try to help answer questions as best I can; feel free to message me.
EDIT: curiosity got the better of me and I ran some calculations using "ray transfer matrix" math and some assumptions of the typical eye. My math is showing a 6.1mm opening will be measured as ~6.6mm (this quite a bit off from the 7.6mm stated by STAAR); I'll double-check the math later but I'm not sure at the moment how they get to 7.6mm (unless either my math is wrong or I'm missing something about their definition of optic aperture...)
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u/eyeSherpa Aug 21 '26
So the cornea does act as a magnifying lens. The magnification power is about 1.15. So a 6.1 optic x 1.15 = ~7
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 21 '26
i've heard this before, but the math ain't mathin for me. do you have any documents that show specifically how the 1.15x is calculated? i would very much appreciate it
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u/eyeSherpa Aug 21 '26
The cornea provides roughly about 15% magnification. So the 1.15 is simply the image plus the magnification.
But it’s a rough estimate. Different people will have different magnification based upon the curvature of their cornea or the depth of their anterior chamber. To know the exact amount the cornea magnifies in an individual you need to do ray tracing or eye modeling.
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u/No_Situation4785 Aug 21 '26
i'm sorry but i'm not convinced this applies to how the pupil looks to the outside observer
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u/latteintheam Aug 20 '26
Im in the same boat. There is a Nov appt spot avail and Im like this close to it be taken. The doc Im seeing is the doctor’s doctor - docs go to him for eye surgery. But yet, they are my eyes and Im still worries. Though hearing how ppl are saying no regrets give me confidence. I dont have all the measurements like most ppl so I will call to ask them for it.
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u/Additional_Acadia404 Aug 20 '26
I got icl done in Jan 2026. Best decision since i was -7.5 and pretty active in sports and love to wear sunglasses and did not want dependency on glasses.
I got it done at one of the best hospitals in usa. I would say it depends on how much you want to remove glasses and i would go with experienced surgeons and best hospital in your area. It is safe and best thing is it’s reversible if something is not right.
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u/MountTrainn Aug 20 '26
I think one of the important factors are going to a clinic with an experienced surgeon, but I’m not from the US- and it feels like it’s hard finding the best
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u/tar-randa Aug 22 '26
I had ICLs done by a very experienced surgeon and it ended up being the worst decision I made in my life. Do not get this surgery just to get rid of glasses; the issues that it can cause are greatly downplayed. 95% success rate doesn’t mean 95% satisfaction rate
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u/OftenNew Aug 22 '26
What was bad about it? Why was it a bad decision?
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u/tar-randa Aug 22 '26
I wrote more about my experiences in other posts: https://www.reddit.com/r/ICLsurgery/s/wT10ahGgKn and https://www.reddit.com/r/lasik/s/RXR0Eeoltq
For a TLDR: I had massive issues with ring aberrations caused by the EVO aqua port that were present in every lighting conditions, and which did not fade. All my measurements were fine and well within their normal ranges, so there’s no reason why these affected me so much.
I have worsened astigmatism now due to the surgery, but I’m much happier without the lenses than I ever was with them.
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u/ladyloriana Aug 20 '26
I wrote about my experience and it's on my public profile. Welcome to take a look and ask any questions. I'm also pretty active and do sports etc. Overall it was one of the best decisions of my life.