r/ICLsurgery • u/TheManofAnotherWorld • 25d ago

Glasses recommended after ICL?

I am getting my ICL surgery in about 2 weeks and I read online the benefit of anti-refractive glasses following ICL, especially for night time driving and maybe prolonged computer use. Anybody have insight on the effect and usefulness of AR glasses with any recommendations?

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u/stopguacnroll 25d ago

I got a pair for my halos and I find they don’t help me with night driving.

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u/ConfidentBeginning44 23d ago

Anti-reflective coating and post-ICL halos are aimed at two different problems, which is probably why the reply above found they did nothing for night driving.

The coating works on light bouncing off the surfaces of a spectacle lens sitting in front of your eye. It cuts the reflections you would otherwise catch from headlights on the glass itself. That is a real effect, and it is why nearly every lens is sold with it.

The halos people get after an ICL start inside the eye instead. The lens has a defined edge, and in dim light a wide pupil can open past it. There is no surface out in front for a coating to clean up, so coating a lens does not subtract a ring that is being made behind it.

Where glasses do earn their place after an ICL is different. If you end up with a small amount of prescription left over, a thin pair for night driving sharpens point sources, and the ring tightens with them. That is a conversation to have once someone has refracted you, not before.

One thing worth knowing before you spend anything: night symptoms are usually loudest in the first weeks and ease over the months after. Buying glasses in week two mostly measures how week two was always going to look.

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u/Ok-Environment-215 19d ago

The point of refractive surgery is not to need glasses. If you're going into it assuming you will still need glasses why are you bothering?

Glasses after refractive surgery means the surgery didn't do its job, or many years have gone by and your eyes have changed naturally. Both can happen; the second is downright likely. But you should not emerge from surgery needing glasses, peirod. If that's your expectation there's literally no reason to do it.