Question 1: What is the option in high myopia if LASIK is not possible?
Answer : Phakic intraocular lens/Implantable contact lens (ICL) is a form of refractive surgery where specially designed lens is implanted into the eye to correct high myopia (nearsightedness) in patients who are not suitable candidate for LASIK. Word “Phakia” means lens, so in this surgery natural lens present in eye is left untouched and new lens is implanted over the natural lens.
Question 2: Who are suitable candidate for ICL?
Answer: Patients who are more than 21 years of age with stable refraction and without any preexisting eye disease such as uveitis etc. are suitable candidate for ICL surgery
Question 3: What are the advantages of ICL surgery?
Answer: The biggest advantage of ICL surgery is that it can treat high myopic refractive errors that is not possible with LASIK surgery. An added advantage is that natural lens is preserved and so natural accommodation is preserved. Moreover, it is reversible procedure.
Question 4: Is this procedure safe? What are risks involved?
Answer : ICL is a very safe procedure.There may be some minor side effects like glare and haloes which usually settle with time. Serious complication like cataract, glaucoma etc. are less common and can be managed
Question 5: Is the lens visible to others?
Answer: As ICL is positioned behind the iris (the colored part of the eye), so it is not visible to anybody.
LASIK Vs ICL
ICL and LASIK both are good options to get rid of glasses. ICL is a boon to those patients who were rejected for LASIK due to their irregular shape or insufficient thickness of their cornea. Moreover patients with eye diseases like keratoconus or dry eyes who were not suitable for LASIK can now also enjoy good vision without glasses with the help of ICL.