For those who want to have refractive surgery but are not a good candidate for LASIK, PRK, or SMILE, implantable collamer lens surgery offers a way to reduce the dependence on glasses or contact lenses. Unlike other refractive surgeries that alter the shape of the cornea, an implantable collamer lens actually places a lens inside the eye to alter the prescription of the eyes.
This procedure requires the surgery to be performed in an operating room similar to cataract surgery. The biggest benefits of an implantable contact lens are the ability to correct very large prescriptions, perform the correction regardless of the thickness or shape of the cornea, and that the surgery does not induce subsequent dry eye symptoms after the procedure.
How LASIK and PRK Correct Vision
Both LASIK and PRK use lasers to alter the thickness and the shape of the outside of the eye, the cornea. By altering the cornea, the eye is corrected to no longer require contact lenses or glasses.
Nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism can be corrected with these procedures.
Since these procedures are removing tissue from the cornea, the cornea must be adequately thick to sustain both the removal of tissue and still have a healthy amount remaining.
Typically, prescriptions greater than -6.00 diopters are considered unfavorable for performing these types of procedures.
The larger the prescription value, the more tissue has to be removed from the cornea to correct the vision.
How Implantable Collamer Lenses Correct Vision
An implantable collamer lens functions very differently than LASIK or PRK because instead of removing tissue and altering the eye, the collamer lens is implanted into the eye to correct the vision.
The implantable collamer lens is placed in the eye directly behind the iris, the colored portion of the eye.
The ICL will rest between the iris and the crystalline lens inside the eye. In this space, it can sit without causing any irritation or resulting in complications.
The prescription power of the eye is factored and then corrected with the implanted lens to reduce the need for glasses and contact lenses.
Since the ICL procedure does not rely on removing any tissue to correct the prescription, it can be used to correct much higher prescriptions than other surgery options like LASIK.
Concerns with ICL
While the ICL procedure can be done for prescriptions that cannot be corrected with other options, there are specific concerns when considering an ICL instead of LASIK.
Since the implantable lens has to be surgically inserted into the eye, it requires an incisional surgery that must be performed in a sterile environment.
These surgeries will require sedation with anesthesia, and although the patient will remain conscious, the sedation will be quite strong.
Following the implanting of the ICL, vision is usually still fairly blurry for up to a week. During this time, multiple eye drops must be used to reduce inflammation, prevent bacterial infection, and control pain in the eyes.
The ICL surgery does come with a small risk of developing a retinal break or detachment that will require surgery to be stabilized.
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