I had surgery on 8 July 2006 (1 year ago) at Shaftesbury clinic with surgeon Osama Giledi. I had the wavefront scan and wavefront guided lasers. Previously I'd been about -2 on both eyes with astygmatism.

My eyesight is now perfect and has been for about 10 months. I do feel as if my eyes are very dry quite often, but that could just be because London air is generally quite polluted. I don't require eye drops, although use them maybe once every 2-3 weeks. My eyes do sometimes feel as if they're weaker/thinner than they were previously, but I guess maybe they are... this causes no problems though.

My experience of surgery was a little traumatic. During all my pre-surgery tests I specifically asked whether I was suitable for LASIK. I was assured that I was a "perfect candidate". However when I turned up on the day the surgeon looked at the same test results and said I was not suitable for LASIK because my corneas were uneven thicknesses.

So he gave me 30 minutes to decide whether to do LASEK or to go home. I was entitled to a full refund if I said no. Although I was not actively pressured, I did feel a little pressured by staff coming to ask if I wanted to go ahead every 5 minutes. And I felt as if I did not have enough information to make an informed decision about LASEK, as I had spent the previous 2 months reading up about LASIK.

I decided to go ahead. The next 4-5 days I had very sore eyes, and very blurry eyesight. I was forced to take more days off work than I had planned, which was annoying and again if I had been told early on that I was only suitable for LASEK I may have decided not to do it.

For about 2 weeks after surgery my eyes were very tired and very dry, and I had less than perfect vision. I had double or triple vision for about 3 weeks in total, which was somewhat concerning.

After about a month the double vision had subsided, but for the next month or so I still had problems focussing on sharp brightness contrasts, e.g. computer screen or train timetable messages (anything with LEDs was a problem).

About 2 or so months after surgery I felt as if my eyesight was good, and it felt stable. It has been so ever since.

Optical Express's test of your eyesight prescription post surgery is not overly flash - I got told I had 20/12 vision (i.e. better than 20/20) but I guessed some of the letters on the board as I had done the test a number of times during the whole process.

Surgery itself was not too bad - having my eyes held open for about 2-3 minutes each eye was a little uncomfortable but not too bad. The surgeon did have to re-do one eye, which was a little concerning, and a bit more painful.

Was it worth doing - yes. Could it have gone better - probably. Do I recommend Optical Express - yes, they were capable, but not perfect.

I also checked out the Ultralase offices, which seemed almost identical in terms of professionalism and technology as Optical Express. I chose Optical Express because they were about £400 cheaper (taking into account the discounts I could get from either), and the office was more convenient for me.

Hope that's useful.