Ultralase

Hi everyone, I am considering having surgery done at Ultralase Newcastle. Would love to hear from anyone who has had experience of this particular clinic: consultation, procedure itself and outcome. My prescription is -5.00 both eyes. Also, I'd like to know how long you had to wait between consult and op as I've got to travel from Northern Ireland and stay with a friend so I'd like to know how long I'll be sleeping on her floor for!

I HAVE RECENTLY VISITED THE CHESTER CLINIC FOR A CONSULTATION. FOUND EVERYONE THERE REALLY FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL. I WAS ABLE TO HAVE ANY OF THE PROCEDURES BUT HAVE CHOSEN THE ULTRALASIK PLUS REALLY BECAUSE OF THE HIGH SUCCESS RATE. I WAS NOT PUSHED INTO ANY DECISIONS AT ANY TIME AND WAS NOT ENCOURAGED TO GO FOR THE MOST EXPENSIVE TREATMENT. I HAVE JUST BOOKED IN FOR THE TREATMENT, SO I'LL KEEP YOU POSTED WITH THE RESULTS, WHICH WILL HOPEFULLY BE GREAT.

I am really scare! I went for a consultation today at Ultralase Clinic in St Albans. I have a lazy eye, but the surgeon says it is OK to have the surgery. When I ask about the risk, he told me that there have been cases reported of not getting the results expected or getting worse than before surgery. As soon as I came back home, went to Ultralase's website and there are lots of people in the forum that have serious problems with their eyes after treatment. I do not know if I should go for the treatment. Any good piece of advise?

Would anyone care to say how many operations a surgeon must perform before being instilling confidence in you to request them to perform the operation.

I'm not very happy with the fact that Ultralase have banned me from their forum and deleted my post in which I asked why. I assume this is because I openly praise Accuvision and I have sent some private messages suggesting that people give them a try. However, the forum in no way forbids the discussion of other providers and even has a specific area to discuss them. There are very few rules to break. I won't give a rating as it would give an unfair picture of their treatment. Let's see if this post gets deleted too. Now that would be interesting.

Is it advised to perform laser surgery on one eye if the other has amblyopia? I am 70 years old.

My initial consultation was at the Ultralase clinic in St Albans. I must say that all the staff there were great - knowledgeable and really did seem to take time to treat me like an individual. The consultation sugested that, as my corneas were quite thin, I should go for LASEK. However, the details were sent to the surgeon who said that I should have Ultra LASEK PLUS (the most expensive). Although I did book a time for my surgery, I had to postpone as I was going abroad for work. When I returned, my surgeon no longer came to St Albans - only to Hammersmith. As such I resceduled my surgery to be done at Hammersmith. I had my surgery done a week agao - on the 18.6.05. I was the first one scheduled. As it was such a hot and humid day, the laser was not at the right humidity to operate properly, so we had to wait. However, what this meant was that the surgeon spent about 5 mins with me in order to "catch up" with his work load. He waved away my questions, told me we could discuss later, had the nurse put drops into my eyes and THEN asked me to sign the consent form. Again I said that I had questions around the thickness of my cornea - he said that everything will be fine but if not, the operation to correct anything would not be possible. Obviously, I was feeling full of confidence and excitement!! The man didn't even respond to my "good morning" when I met him. Before I knew what was going on, we were in the theatre, the laser did its thing, and the 'Dr' was away! He was 'consulting' with another patient even before I had got off the bed. I was also in a LOT of pain - I couldn't open my eyes at all. I was lead back into the waiting room - and not the post-op lounge they mention in the brochure, as there was nobody to staff the lounge. Nobody then came to ask how I was, if I needed anything, or why I was clutching my face! Only when my friend came to pick me up and saw how I was, and only when she then told one of the nurses, did this 'Dr' come back. He went back into his room (i was supposed to follow - with my eyes shut!). When I got to his room, he put what felt like a bucket of anesthitic drops into my eyes and told me I would be fine. The whole day and night was very uncomfortable. I had my post-op check the next morning at Hammersmith. Different doctor, same service. Apparently they only open on a Sunday if they had to - and clearly it was a particular burden for them. The chap had no time to answer any question or concerns. "Keep taking the pain killers" was his only comment. I was very glad to go back to St Albans a week later. As always, they were all great. When you spend £3000 and have something done to such a precious part of yourself, you want to feel as though the people you deal with actually care - that actually you are more to them than a new entry in their bank book. My vision a week later is still blurred, but I have been assured that this will get better in time. Don't get me wrong - it is certainly better than before. I had a -3.5 prescription in each eye. But now I can see far better. Once the haze and blur goes, I will be over the moon. But it is such a shame that I was made to feel the way I did - and to be honest, it scared me because I thought I had made such a bad mistake and had messed up my eyes. I haven't heard or read a poor comment about Ultralase - and that's why I picked them. My advice - get to speak with your surgeon first.

I went to Ultralase last week for a consultation,and Ive got to admit I'm not impressed. I'd read all comments on here which lead me to going to Leeds. I was running late as accident on M1 so I rang ultralase 40 mins before my appointment to explain(I'd given myself an extra hour travelling as well). I arrived at clinic and was told I was 10 mins late, told them I'd rung the call centre they said had no record of call and they may not be able to do all tests that day. OK so I waited 5 mins and was taken into a room, I asked the girl her qualification for using the equipment - she only does the tests she can't interpret the results, that fills me with confidance. She used 3 eye testing machines and had to redo the tests on each one, a couple of them twice. She wasn't qualified as an opticition apparently and blamed the equipment - said it was tempremental. Any way I went back out and waited another 5 mins, took into another room with optician, he checked my glasses(he got a different reading to the girl in the other room and my own optician ) did some tests, put drops in my eyes to open my pupils, wasnt happy with one of the tests Id just had done and sent be back to the 1st girl again, waitied 5-10min and had eye mapping test redone. waited again back to see optician he was completly different from 1st time Id seen him. Was very informative about everything that could go wrong - scarring, etc, But what worried me the most was he said my eye sight would more that likly be driving standard (with my glasses/lenses its 4 times better than this now) no guarentees at all. If problems they would get consultant to ring and sort out any problems next working day. he wasnt concerned about the thickness of my cornea, any tollerances nothing. I was terrified and to be honest stunned. went back into waiting room, waited 10 mins took into room by a nice lady whose job it was to sell me the treatment.I really wasnt sure who I should have asked questions to, she didnt know one of the surgeons (nothing about him, hes a part timer covers holidays - do a search on google she told me) They opted for 2 different types of surgery and seemed to take pleasure in the fact that one was very uncomfortable. The whole process was very similiar to herding sheep from one place to another. it took 2 & half hours, others were waiting similiar time. For just under £ 3,000 I was expecting better treatment - even though it was only a consultation. The straw that broke the camels back for me was - a lady was brought into reception having just had the surgery, she sat opposite the window, it was a very sunny day but one of the receptionists choose that moment to open the blinds allowing sunlight to stream into the room, I found it uncomfortable as my pupils were dilated Im sure she wasnt happy either. This is obviously my personnal opinion, others seem to have faired much better. Although my friend had been 2 years earlier and she said that after the consultation she was terrified - all the negatives, no reasurance, she eventually went to Boots and is overjoyed with the results. Me - Ive just booked to have surgery with Accuvision where the service was second to none, one to one consultation, shown treatment room, laser and diagrams drawn showing cornea tolerances etc. I was 100% impressed with the consultation - see how I go on with surgery, I will post results on accuvison site at a later date.

Attended Cardiff recieved an awful sales pitch that 'oh how great you and your wife are eligible for the most expensive treatment'. They may be very good at what they do but they are twice the price of elsewhere. The cheaper options were never discussed.

I went to an Ultralase clinic in Hammersmith two weeks ago for the initial consultation. After waiting 40 minutes, I was seen by the consultant and told that the delay was due to the failure of one of the test machines (don't panic, it is not the surgery machine). After the consultation, I was told my eyes were suitable for the ultra wavefront lasik (the most expensive one). But I did feel let down to some extent because the consultant did not explain to me why other options were less suitable for me. Neither did he explain the way ultra wavefront lasik works, compared with other types of surgeries. Two days later, I tried to contact the consultant to ask some more questions, but found out he was not based on this particular clinic, in other words, he worked in more than one place. Never mind, I did get his call back in two days. Last night, I sent an email to the clinic to ask two more questions, but had not received any reply up to this moment. I must say they do provide the service to certain standards, but not in the way I will trust wholeheartedly. On contrast, AccuVision called me this morning at 10am after I wrote them an email asking a few questions last night. This is what I would appreciate. Everyone has only a pair of eyes, and I really need somebody to look after them on high quality standards.