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Cataract after 5 years of ICL surgery.

I was having high myopia of -16 in left and -12 in right eye when I underwent ICL surgery in 2013. After five years of surgery My ICL lens is touching natural and cataract is developing. The ICL vault is 44um in right eye and 244 um in left eye, I have two options either to remove ICL and start wearing spectacles or get the cataract surgery done with intraocular lens having power. The latter one has a risk of retinal detachment. Please advise.
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233488 tn?1310693103
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
I dislike ICL because of this very reason (like a contact lens inside the eye).  You along are going to have to decide what risks you are willing to accept. Removing the ICL and wearing contacts would give the best vision assuming the cataracts are small. If you cannot wear contact lens then you would wear glasses.  If you sought out a highly experienced, highly skilled cornea-refractive surgeon modern surface laser surgery could reduce most, but perhaps not all, your myopia. That would make your glasses, contacts and vision without anything much better.     Cataract surgery carries considerable risks. Both eyes would have to be done (not at once) otherwise the difference in  glasses RX betweeen the two eyes would be too much to tolerate (aneisometropia)   The risk of a retinal detachment, even with an uncomplicated surgery and insertion of an intraocular lens (IOL) would be significant. Depending on what the back of your eye looks like, thin areas, holes, etc. that risk could be as high as 1 to 5%.  You should consider a second opinion and try and find the best cornea/refractive surgeon you can travel to.
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6 Comments
I know lots of people who had Lasik, PRK, Smile, etc. done by highly-skilled, highly-experienced refractive surgeons and still wound up with terrible complications, including ectasia and incurable pain syndromes.
In my opinion, no refractive surgery is safe, including PRK, LASIK, LASEK, SMILE, ICLs and Refractive Lens Exchange (RLE) since RLE has the same risk of complications that cataract surgery has. This applies no matter which doctor you go to or how much money you spend.
Your sample size is too small.  Do you know anyone that has been killed in an automobile accident? Of course. Do you still travel in a car? Of course, why because the risks are small and the only thing you hear about car, plane or train travel or the accidents. It's the same with surgery. Besides you already opted for relatively high risk surgery ICL and you have had a well know complication (cataracts) and now you are having another operation. So you obviously are not risk adverse.
Rather than say it's not safe, I'll just say it has risks that in my opinion people should not take (PS I am not the original poster).
So I'm just saying that even if the risk of serious complications is very low, to me it's not worth taking the risk. It's up to the original poster if they want to risk it or not.
yes dori76 I did think that was the original poster.   Your body.  Your choices. Sometimes taking no risks is in itself risky (e.g. not exercising)
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