My Doctor and two Opticians recommended David Gartry to me. The Optician I had been with for the past 19 years said that David Gartry is very well known for his expertise in Eye Surgery and trained with him many years ago. With three professional people telling me to go to him I though I'd give it a try. First I had a consultation with a consultant from Maxi-vision, I have to say it was excellent, very thorough and there was no hard sell which is what I was looking for. My second consultation was with David Gartry at the beginning of March 2002. Having never had Private Surgery I didn't realise that you are literally in and out and things aren't done at a slow pace. Having said that, I did get to ask lot's of questions. The one thing which filled me with confidence was the fact that I was talking to the surgeon, the guy who would be operating on me. If you have consultations with one of these highstreet places then all you do is speak to a consultant. David filled me with confidence, he told me what to expect, what problems he's experienced and hasn't experienced, the amount of operations he's carried out and so on. This is what I wanted to hear, I didn't want to see the surgeon on the day of surgery. My prescription was -7.5 in each eye, although with my astigmatism I may as well have been a -8!! David advised that he could, at the best get it to -0.5 to -1.0. I had my surgery on Saturday 4th May 2002. It was fantastic, less than ten minutes each eye. My left eye was done first and I've never felt my heart rate jump so quickly but half way through I sat there thinking "is that it?", then the right eye was done and I was thinking "hmm, not much to this" and was quite relaxed. David spoke to me throughout the surgery which was good and I was able to ask him questions throughout. There was NO pain and NO discomfort, absolutely amazing. As soon as I stood up I had already noticed a difference. By the time I got home to Bournemouth my vision was really good, eyes ached a little but no major pain. And once I woke up on Sunday morning it was better still. It's been over a week and my vision is still improving. My vision in poorly lit areas, particulary where there is a lot of artifical light isn't too good at the moment. My pupils were large anyway and I suffered from star bursts before the surgery. My vision now at night time is a little worse than when I wore contact lenses but it is improving. I am hoping it will almost disappear. With age it will and I spoke to a friend who had the surgery and he said it took a while, so hopefully over the next few months I'll see the halo's reduce. David Gartry is fantastic and worth spending the money going to moorfields, it is afterall, probably the most well known eye hospital in the world. Pay the extra (which isn't much) and have it done by the best, it's worth it, they're your eyes!! At present I almost have 20/20 vision which is out of this world and couldn't have asked for much more. This is better than what was predicted. It could regress slightly but I have a long road ahead of me before I can get a prescription but I hope it stay's roughly the same as it is now.