Laser Eye Surgery Review by Richard Trenholm
Richard Trenholm, Editor of CNET UK, had IntraLase
Wavefront LASIK laser eye
treatment in July 2010. Treated by Dr Slazus at Optimax London Laser Eye
Surgery Clinic.
"Hello, my name is Richard and I'm about to hopefully have Laser Eye
Surgery.
So, I've worn glasses since I was at primary school so it's been
most of my life, my prescription is about -5, -5.50 in each eye, so
I'm pretty short sighted.
Got the brochure that Optimax
sent, which has got loads of information and it's got the different
kinds of surgery available, aftercare and
all that kind of stuff. I've got the consultation tomorrow it's at
the Liverpool Street branch
of Optimax
in London. I've got my papers and not wearing contact lenses, I'm
all set, so I'll let you know how I got on.
Hello again, so I'm back from my first consultation. I went to
see the optometrist he gave me a normal eye test, same as any usual
opticians, same sort of thing you've probably had plenty of times
especially, if you've worn glasses as long as I have. You got to
focus on the lines and read lines off a chart and do the thing when
the eye flips in and out 'number one', 'number two' sort of thing
and, the other thing that I had to have put in was dilating drops,
so what they would do is make your pupils bigger, so they can get a
really good look inside of your eye but because your pupils are
bigger there's more light coming in so your eyes are more sensitive
to the light, I'm ok now actually but, this might be a little bit
darker than I like.
I'm definitely opting for the LASIK and the IntraLase cornea
flaps, so yeah Lasers all the way.
I've been given a load of papers, for patients; recommend a
friend, patient information guide, a map of the clinic, some details about the
treatment and some stuff about the doctor himself.
I made the appointment for a Friday, so I can take the Friday
off and, have all weekend to recover and then I can hopefully go
back into work on Monday, without these (glasses).
Hello again, it's the big day; it's the morning of the big day!
I'm about to go get my Laser Eye
Surgery I'm going to the Optimax
in Finchley Road, so wish me luck!
Hello, I'm back again and I have new eyes, it didn't hurt, it
wasn't painful, it wasn't anywhere near as unpleasant as I was kind
of imaged that it might be.
So right now my eyes just feel really dry, I feel like I've
slept in my contact lenses, you know when you sleep in your contact
lenses and you just feel gummed up. Now I'm going to go to bed and
sleep through to the morning and, then I've got another appointment
and there going to check that everything is ok, so I'll speak to
you again then.
Hello, so it's the day after my Laser Eye
Surgery and here I am, no glasses and I can see, it's
brilliant! I've put a load of eye drops in so I'm still a little
bit misted up from all the eye drops, but yeah I feel pretty good.
I can see stuff right across the room; I can see the clock next to
the bed, I can see all sorts of things. Still a little bit
sensitive, so that's why I've got the curtains a bit closed, but
feeling pretty good.
The procedure itself, you walk in and it's like a dentist
really, there's a dentist chair laid out flat, you get in, you lay
down, the surgeon asks you to position yourself so you're under the
laser, there are two sets of lasers equipment your positioned under
the first one, your eyes are constantly moisturised all the time,
constantly putting drops in your eyes.
Started off with a suction cup which is basically a clear
plastic ring the size of your eye, your eyes are held open so the
suction cup can be placed. It was kind of uncomfortable, it's a bit
of pressure around the edges of your eyes; you're looking up into
the laser through the section cup, you can't really see anything at
this point, you're so misty and blurring from the drops and the
rest of it and, the laser shines into your eyes, you don't feel it,
you don't hear anything, you can't really see anything except this
green light, slightly blurry, fluttering around above you.
That's the flap cut but it kind of stays in place and they
remove the suction cap and that's over really, really quickly. You
can blink at that point as well; you don't have to worry too much
about disturbing the flap. They cover that eye over and, do the
same with the other eye and suction cup, Laser flap. At that point
the surgeon said 'that's the worst of it over' which was brilliant
to hear.
The next bit is the actual Laser as in the shaping of the eye;
it doesn't involve a suction cup or anything. I was asked to look
up and the surgeon basically taped this sticky clear film, stuck it
to my cheek, it held my eye lid up and stuck the tape on my
forehead.
Then the flap was opened up and that involved the surgeon
actually using a little sticky thing to open up the flap and, that
was slightly weird and, that was the only time that anything
physically actually came into my eye. It's almost like when you've
got your glasses on and, just lifting the glasses up and everything
goes out of focus, that's exactly what it was like and, again I
didn't feel anything, it wasn't painful.
It's a little bit difficult to focus on the Laser because it's
kind of flashing, and moving around and it's out of focus and
blurry. It's a bit like the end of 2001, or something, it's got
these lights flashing in front of you, but just keep focusing on
the green and red laser as best as you can.
The sound wasn't a problem it's a bit like a crack, crack noise,
like a little bolt of lightning. Then there was the smell, a lot of
people had warned me of the smell, that's what everyone said. It's
kind of an electric smell, like when you're a kid and leave the
electric on for too long and it starts to over heat. I didn't find
it a problem and it was over very quickly.
It's going to sound stupid but the thing that was the most
painful, mainly because it was completely unexpected, was when the
film was taken off my eye, it was stuck to my cheek and forehead
and, when that suddenly came off I was like 'ahh!', but apart from
that, no, there was absolutely no pain at all.
The surgeon just said 'ok, right you can sit up now' and I was
sort of thinking 'right am I going to be helped out of here?' And I
just sort of sat up, I had so many drops in my eyes and, it was so
misty and blurry but I could tell straight away my vision had
improved and, what it felt like was when you get a new pair of
glasses and it's a bit like 'whoa'.
Then I was taken downstairs and given a quick check-up to check
that everything was ok, everything looked fine, so I was given a
coffee, there was a lot of waiting around but all-in-all I got
there about 10am and I left at about 1pm.
The optometrist said 'how was that?' I was sat there thinking
'it almost seems too easy, it feels really straight forward' and
she said 'well you won't be saying that when the anaesthetic starts
to wears off' and I thought 'ah oh'.
The anaesthetic started to wear off probably as I was about to
leave, so I put my sunglasses on and, I could start to feel it
getting a bit achy. It did feel a bit dry, my right eye felt
slightly worse.
My brother came with me to help me out and he bought me these
sunglasses which are brilliant because there cycling sunglasses, so
there designed to be completely wrapped around really close to your
face, so their great for keeping the light out.
As soon as I got home I was able to take these for pain, they
were the same drops used during the treatment, so when you get home
if your eyes feel uncomfortable during the journey home you can
take these and relax a bit.
I've been given a bunch of drops and stuff, it's all clearly
labelled as you can see '1R', so I take that for my right eye and,
then I take left eye and, then wait 10 minutes, then I've got 2R
and 2L. Also I've got these refresh drops, if I'm feeling a bit dry
or uncomfortable then I can just stick one of these in.
So I've got to sleep in these fellas, these are plastic eye
shields they go on like that; that will stop me from rubbing my
eyes. It took me quite a while to get to sleep; I think that was
partially the eye shields, partially my eyes were a bit
uncomfortable, especially my right eye, really felt like it had
something in it.
That was the really hard part of not rubbing my eyes and, even
now after having put my drops in they feel a little bit misty.
Now I'm off to my consultation to check that everything is
looking good, I'm feeling good, I'm pretty happy, my eyes feel
fine, I'm not feeling in pain, right see you later!
Hello again, I'm back for the final time. Now I can do all the
things I had to lay off after the surgery so I can go back to the
gym, I can shower normally, rub my eyes, I don't take the drops
anymore. I went swimming for the first time the other day without
having to worry about contact lenses or swimming goggles and the
rest of it, that was brilliant and I go surfing.
So I hope that if you are having the procedure that this video
diary has helped to put your mind at rest about how quick and
painless the procedure is good luck with it and I hope that it goes
as smoothly as it did for me. So thank you very much for watching
my video diary and take care. "
All our success stories are volunteered by Optimax
patients who are so delighted with results of their treatment
that they wanted to share their experience with others.
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