Had my surgery done on 4th Feb at the Nottingham branch.


OE appear to book people in in batches. There were 2 other people present at my 8.30 slot, which does mean a certain amount of waiting around to be seen. As I was the last one in, this meant a wait of about 40 mins before I was taken to see the surgeon for a pre-op check. A bit of a production line feel to the whole process, but the staff were all friendly and helpful.

The surgeon was a little unhappy about a couple of areas on the wavefront maps of my eyes and I had to have these test re done. These came back the same as the first set of photos, so he said he would have to send them off for a second opinion. This involved a wait of another hour or so. Not complaining about this you understand -- in fact it was reassuring that he was double checking.

After an hours wait I had more or less convinced myself that I was going to be rejected as unsuitable, but I was called back and told everything was fine (perhaps they'd realised I was going for the full works and was too profitable to turn away!)

I was then taken to a samll room where my eyes were washed, nice hairnet fitted, and had my post-op drops explained. 10 mins later I was off to the laser.

People generally describe the procedure as painless but a bit uncomfortable. Can't really argue with that, but its certainly not something I'd do for fun. I have fairly deeply set eyes and I think that meant that they had more trouble getting the suction ring attached correctly. It was certainly pretty uncomfortable and felt like someone trying to ram my eye through the back of my head. Unfortunately, half way through creating the flap in my left eye the suction was lost and the ring had to be re-applied. It was definitely a bit worrying when I heard them say "we've lost suction". However, the ring was re-applied and flap was finished without problems. The surgeon later explained that this is far less of an issue when the flap is being created using intralase as the laser cuts out immediately, but if I had been having the flap cut with a blade then it would probably have meant the flap would have been completely detached from my eye. Although he told me that even this would not have been a problem, as they used to completely remote the flaps in the early days, rather than hinge them, I imagine it must make the chances of flap displacement more likely. £600 well spent I think.

After this, the lasering itself was a doddle. No pain and over in less than 30 secs. Seeing the surgeon lift the flap prior to the lasering is a rather freaky experience but you feel nothing. I did find it a bit difficult to focus on the orange light you are supposed to look at though as it seemed to come and go.

Once the flaps were smoothed back into place I was told to go with the nurse and sit with my eyes closed for 10 mins. This was easier said than done as my vision was cloudy to say the least for the first 10 seconds or so after getting off the chair.

After 10 mins rest the surgeon saw me again briefly and told me the ops had gone well and I could go. He mentioned that because the suction ring had come off and had to be re-applied, I had suffered worse than normal haemorhaging to the white of my left eye. Once I got home I realised this was something of an understatement, as my left eye didn't really have a white anymore, just a red.

Once the anesthetic wore off I did experience some watering / stinging, but no worse than a couple of hours peeling onions.

You get a fair number of reviews of lasik surgery where people say "I went to bed for four hours and then my eyesight was perfect and no pain". I think anyone considering laser surgery should realise that this isn;t the case for everyone. By the evening I didn't actually have any pain and my vision was certainly way better than it used to be without glasses, but my eyes were very dry. Very similar to having contacts in for too long.

The following day I found my eyes really gritty for the first 5 minutes after waking up, but this passed quickly. Vision in my right eye seemed pretty near perfect, although the left was slightly less so. At the first day checkup they told me that my vision using both eyes was slightly better than 20/20, although being able to struggle through an eye chart doesn't really bear much relation to your quality of vision in the real world, as I still found things ever so slightly blurry.

It's now 5 days since my op and my vision is definitely improving each day. For the first 2 or 3 days dry eye was definitley a problem, but thats also improving nicely. I get a certain amount of mild haloes around things like street lights and any bright object on a dark background, but its not at a level I find disturbing.

Now that my horrendous red eye is also starting to subside a bit and children no longer run screaming when they see me, I'm feeling rather pleased I went through with the surgery.

Would I recommend it? Yes, definitely, but just set your expectations at a realistic level -- you may not get perfect eyesight after just 4 hours, just give it time.