MY,k436suy

Ok, I visited Optimax lunchtime for a consultation on having as 'title'.
Anyone here had it done?
Your experiences, thoughts any complications etc are all welcome, I need to make an informed choice soonish before I start a new job.

TIA
John.

Zeon

My mate has had it done. Painful for a week or so he said but he hasn't looked back since (no pun intended).

I've considered it but to be honest you only get one pair of eyes and I ain't ****ing around with my sight for the sake of a pair of glasses/contact lenses.

David_Dickson

i was told that I coiuld have it now (well a few years ago when I went for the test) but was warned that due to my sight deteriorating I would proably be back in glasses within 10 years.
Waste of money in my case imo, but it all depends on your individual situation.

One thing I did notice....loads of the people doing the test and selling me this wonder op all wore glasses themselves...... maybe they just werent suitable, maybe they thought it wasnt worth the risk, maybe they knew something i didnt...who knows. A paranoid cynic could read something from that fact

Power Junkie

iTrader: (1)

I had it done 2 years ago learly, It is so nice not having glasses anymore. it wasnt painful at all just a bit odd, by the next day all was clear, the only problem i have is my eyes get tired and dry, but nothing optrex doesnt fix.

boxst

I had this done a year ago and it is great to not have to wear glasses. I had Intralase Femtosecond and Wavefront and used Optimax in Croydon.

I had it done on a Friday, went back on Saturday to check everything was fine. Spent the day in a darkened room listening to Audio books. Sunday I was up and about and Monday I drove 300 miles to teach! So not painful and an easy recovery.

I haven't had any complications such as dry-eye. I have perfect vision in my left eye and near-perfect in my right. The only thing I have noticed is that I'm more prone to eye infections, having had three in the last year and one in my whole life before that.

Steve

NorthDave

i had mine done 2 or 3 years ago and have never looked back. I had the one where they cut half the lens off and then laser. I cant remember the name at the moment. It was bloody painful and my eyes streamed for a couple of days. The thought of having it done again doesnt do much for me but the benefits have been excellent and it was worth it.

I dont get dry eyes, infections or any of that stuff. I can read the bottom line on the eye chart (which I couldnt do with glasses or contacts) and i think i am now +0.5. This should mean as I age my eye sight will get better! The only time i think about it now is when i sleep with some else who has to scrabble round for their glasses in the morning. Doesnt happen often!

I went for a consultation at Optimax and didn't like them. I ended up going to the Royal Manchester Eye Hospital who I can not recommend highly enough. They were excellent and I am so glad I didnt try to economise by going elsewhere.

MY,k436suy

Some interesting feed back so far,and thanks for your input.
Please keep them coming!
I've been considering this for a few years now but it's not something you can decide on over night or without hearing other peoples fews and opinions.

Markus

I have to say I am tempted to have it done, as is Rose. There are a couple of rather good clinics locally that do it. Cost is obviously one factor to take into consideration. Squeamishness is another. I wear glasses as I'm not overly keen on sticking things in my eyes, and I have seen the procedure performed and it looks somewhat Clockwork Orange like and my skin begins to crawl, guess I'm just a big Baby

The other main factor for me is how long does it last, and how many times can the procedure be re-done, if at all. If I'm told I'll have perfect vision for 10 - 15 years, and then can have another procedure to get another similar length of time then it's even more appealing. If it's say 15 years max, not possible to have another op done, and you're back to contacts/glasses, then I'm not sure wether it's worthwhile.

I also want to see what, if any, other long term issues there may be from the procedures. I think many will agree that your eyesight is rather precious and you'd rather wear contacts/glasses if it meant you were not going to lose your eyesight 20 years down the line because of laser surgery, though I very much doubt that would be the case.

boxst

Mine cost £2500 (Although it was a present from my parents). I don't like anything to do with my eyes but it was fine. I did have a slight panic moment when I was lying down in the room and a bunch of people in surgical gowns appeared. I didn't really think of it as an operation. You feel a slight suction on the eye whilst they attach the 'clamp' and in my case the laser cut the flap, the surgeon lifted it up and then a burning smell whilst the second laser did its thing. Delightful.

You can only have it done once really. It IS possible to have it more than that but it depends on the thickness of your cornea. You probably will need to wear reading glasses as you get older, but you shouldn't need re-correction for short sightedness.

Longterm is trickier. There have been no reported problems over the last 15 or so years that it has been used widely. That is not to say there isn't any of course.

Steve

MY,k436suy

Half the reason i posted this was obviously for feed back, and because there isn't much info on the ones that don't go right.
I know my cornea is 570 microns which is good as it needs to be 500 for them to offer treatment.
Reading glasses later in life i think is expected for most people IMHO so that doesn't put me off.
Wearing glasses in my new job is going to cause one or two problems hence why i'm finding out as much info as i can now.
I wear glasses currently and have to say i ruddy hate them!

little-ginge

do you mind me asking what your sight prescription is?

I've been looking into this over the last week or so - I am extremely squeamish and wouldnt even consider going for the one where they cut the cornea with a laser...

but my eyesight is terrible - i wear contacts atm, and think my prescription is going to cost quite a bit but don't know if i could bring myself to have it done...

boxst

The other options are they cut it with a KNIFE (which is my opinion is much worse!) or they can not cut at all (Epi-LASEK) but that is painful and has a week or so recovery time.

Steve

boxst

I keep answering as I spent a long time investigating all of this as I was extremely worried. For a summary of the companies I went to see:

Optical Express: Completely useless. Cheap. They kicked the plug out of the machine accidently whilst doing one of the initial tests.

Optimax: Good. A 'geeky' Chinese doctor who seemed genuinely excited about what he does and explained the options very well.

Ultralase: Very professional, very sleek. The most expensive of the 'normal' companies and didn't seem to offer much (apart from nicer offices) over Optimax.

Independant: I went to a private eye surgeon in East Grinstead, again professional, offered a more personalised service but was almost double Optimax for very little actual benefit from the actual surgery perspective.

Steve

MY,k436suy

Sure, mine is as follows.

Sphere cylinder Axis Distance acuity Near acuity
Right- -1.75 -3.25 65.0 6/6 n5

Left- -0.75 -2.75 110.0 6/6 n5

Hope thats of some help!

John.

little-ginge

I was just wondering as accoridng to ultralase website they can treat up to a certain level then you can have implantable contact lenses ( the thought just makes me heave)..

MY,k436suy

I used to hate the dentist, now i actually look forward to it!

Seriously though, keep this thread going that way with others input hopefully we will both find out a bit more, not an easy decision to make though by no means.

John.

little-ginge

I overcame my fear of sticking lenses in my eyes - although it took a fair while

I guess everyones experience will differ, but it helps having some first hand info

Bonehead

Oh grow up...
I've had ICL's put in both my eyes. It's a really straighforward procedure that takes twenty min to do then a few days rest followed by being sensible for a few weeks.
I'd gone from -17 in both eyes (could only see the end of my nose then blur) to now reading 6/9 (driving standard)
Had the right eye lasered last november which means I can now see 6/7 unaided (This is a line slightly larger than the 'normal eyesight' line on a speacialist opticians chart.
I can just about see the 6/6 line with glasses.

In a nutshell I've gone from roughly -17 in both eyes to roughly +0.25 in both

Awesome, life changing result really.

PM me if any of you have any questions

SiPie

Good friend of mine had hers done in November and only now is her sight up to what it should be......

Not always as 'uncomplicated' as what they make out but high percentage ok

Ghetto Dude3

good thread IMO

i`m going to go for this at some point, IIRC i am about -1.25 in each eye and currently wear contact lenses, but if they have been in for a while, eyes start to dry up a tad, also have problems wearing them late at night as they irritate my eyes (tiredness?)

dont think i have anything abnormal with my eyes just a bit of short sightedness, should be a doddle, and the savings longterm over contact lenses should pay the initial costs anyway?

stilover

I have always thought about it myself. After a chat with my optition though, he said it was a waste of time for me. My pescription is so bad, that even after surgery I'd still need to wear glasses. Plus, my eyesight after the operation would be worse wearing glasses than they are now. Would get the Halo effect.

Even if I would have been fine to have the surgery, I still think I wouldn't have gone through with it. Reason being:-

You lose your taste. Life goes on as normal.
You lose you hearing. Life is disrupted, but can go on pretty much as normal.
You lose your sight........... Doesn't even bare thinking about
How could you forgive yourself knowing you'd payed to lose your eyesight.

The chance maybe a million to one, but you could be that one.

bmfcrash

iTrader: (14)

2 friends of mine have had this done, Cant remember which method they had but I know it was the dearer method. One of them now has perfect vision, the other may require further treatment as the results are not 100%. The latter though had stigmatisms and this makes it more complicated I believe, That said he had foggy/misty peripheral vision for about 3 weeks but even with a slight perscription still does not need to wear glasses now. Not alot of help as its 3rd hand info, but it is another 2 cases and both are happy they had it done.

boxst

I couldn't find any cases where the sight loss was total. I did find quite a few where the results were unsuccessful and they still had to wear glasses (with a completely different (sometimes worse) prescription).

Steve

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

My eyes are -3.50 and -4.00, with astigmatism in both as well. Anyone know if that's likely to be fully correctable, or would I need to continue with glasses?

My job is in electronics, which means reading small text, peering at tiny components and so on - so if I needed glasses for that, I'm not convinced that the surgery would necessarily be worthwhile.

I also do Jiu Jitsu, which is obviously an active (violent!) sport for which I currently wear contacts. Does anyone know how long it is between having the op and being able to safely do active sports again? (Someone I knew had a cataract operation and was told not to do anything that risked a knock on the head for about 6 months afterwards - is it similar?)

Ghetto Dude3

mine said the same, nothing to do with the direct debits every month (for the rest of my life?) for eyecare ??

MY,k436suy

Exactly, second, third or more opinions are always best hence why I'll never make a rash decision based on one persson's views (professional or not), and why I posted this thread.
Some great feedback and honest views so far, and if it helps others then all the better.
Is there an eye surgeon on here? as they may have some valuable input, now that would be great!

Luan Pra bang

I had this done it. it all went OK great vision and no problems for £1500. They tried to sell me wavefront but I read on an opticinas forum that wavefront only benefits 3% of patients and they use it to upsell and get some more cash. I did not pay for cutting the flap by laser either as I considered that a pointless upsell right up untill the surgeon did not put anasthetic on one eye and it hurt like buggerery when the blade started.
This was with optical express.