Hi, this was my experience at the Southampton branch of Optical Express... I hope it proves helpful for anyone wanting to have Lasik Wavefront surgery. READ ON AS I DESCRIBE CERTAIN THINGS ABOUT THE PROCEDURE THAT I HAVEN'T READ IN OTHER POSTINGS.

I decided 2 weeks ago, to put my fears asided and go for a consultation to see if I was suitable for Lasik. My consultation was last week (Wed 05 April) - I was told that I was a perfect candidate and my surgery date was set for that Saturday (08 April!!!) I was keen to get it over and done with quickly, before I could think of a reason not to go ahead. I was told by the "counsellor" that the first available date was in May, but I asked if there was any availability that weekend and was told that, in fact, there was. I wanted to make use of their interest free payment option, but because my surgery was due to take place 3 days after my consultation, I was told that there wasn't enough time to set this up, so I had to pay the £1,990 up front.

The optician who performed my initial consultation (Vicky) was brilliant, but I have to say that the counsellor wasn't great. She did get me the early appointment, so I won't grumble too much, but she didn't offer ANY counselling and wasn't terribly helpful when I asked her questions. Thanks to this website though, I had done A LOT of research into the procedure, so she didn't put me off too much.

Saturday, the day of surgery, arrived and to say that I was nervous is an understatement. I did not sleep much the night before...when I did drop off I dreamt about eyes and when I was lieing awake I was thinking about eyes! My appointment was at 09:15 and after signing various papers, having final tests, meeting with the surgeon (Stefan Klopper) and a bit of waiting about (which I didn't mind too much, it actually calmed me down a bit to be waiting with people who were going through the same thing as I was and speaking to people who had the surgery done the day before and were in for their follow ups) I walked into the laser room at about 10:30. I had heard that you could request Valium if you were very scared and I was planning to have it by the truck load, but as it turned out, I didn't need it in the end.

I started shaking uncontrollably when the nurses sat me in the chair, reclined it and started prepping me for the surgery. They offered me a stress ball in the shape of a pink pig, which turned out to be all the "Valium" I needed! While they were waiting for the surgeon, they rolled me under the laser so that I could see what it would look like, they swabbed around my eyes to clean them, doused them with anaesthetic, placed a cover over my left eye and talked to me constantly, making sure that they were in my line of sight all the time, which was reassuring. One of the things that will stick in my mind was when a nurse walked in, introduced herself as "Helen" and said that she was my designated hand-holder and offered me both her hands (I think she regretted this later, as they were purple and had the design on my shirt imprinted on them when I was finished with her!) I found that I couldn't grip the pink pig and both her hands at the same time, so had to relinquish the pig.

The surgery itself was not really what I had expected. The clamp that keeps your eye open wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be, the suction before the cutting of the flap was worse than expected, the cutting of the flap didn't make me want to leap off the chair as I'd feared that I would, the laser was as I'd expected, the smell of my right eye burning was horrible (I tried to breath through my mouth but abandoned this for fear that I would move my eye out of the line of the laser and so prolong the procedure), I didn't smell burning at all when they did my left eye, the smoothing back of the flap was almost soothing - you can see the instrument going across your eye and I suppose the fact that you can see at all, is what is soothing!

One aspect of the surgery that I haven't read in any other postings and which my boyfriend also experienced when he had Lasik 5 years ago AND which the optician also corroborated when I asked her the next day, was that the sensation in my second (left) eye was TOTALLY different to my first eye. The clamp was much the same as the first, but the sensation when they pushed the suction thingy down and then cut the flap was ALMOST painful. I could definately feel a pinching sensation, which made me panic because I thought the anaesthetic was wearing off and the laser hadn't even started yet. I told the surgeon what I was feeling but he said it was okay. The remainder of the surgery on that eye was much the same as the first eye, although the colours I saw while they were lasering were different from the first eye and I was very tense because I expected there to be pain following the pinching feeling of the flap being cut. I told my boyfriend what had happened, he looked sheepish and said that the same thing had happened to him but that he hadn't wanted to tell me because he didn't want to put me off, knowing how scared I was. I asked the optician about it at my next-day follow up and she said that this experience is very common and that they are conducting research into it because they can't figure out why you can feel the second flap being cut, when you can't feel the first one. They have even tried using double the amount of anaesthetic in the second eye, but it makes no difference. They think that, after surgery on the first eye, your adrenalin levels are so high and your brain thinks "holy cow, what are you doing to your eyes??" that it actually makes you feel the sensation even though you shouldn't be able to because of the anaesthetic. This is probably your brain's way of saying, "hang on a minute, are you really sure you want to be doing this to yourself, again?!"

For those of you who are considering laser surgery...don't let this put you off...pinch your skin (not too hard!) and this is what it felt like - more disconcerting than painful. For those of you who have had Lasik, I would be interested to hear from you if you experienced something similar.

Immediately after surgery, it was like looking through milk and not very clear, but funnily enough I wasn't worried at all (again probably down to "feel-good" adrenalin and the knowledge that my eyeball hadn't been sliced in two by the microkeratome or imploded post-laser!).

The surgeon warned me that I would experience some pain after about 20mins, and he wasn't wrong. My eyes watered a bit and were very gritty for the next 5 hours. Every now and then it felt like someone was sticking a sharp pencil into them and I couldn't open my eyelids for any extended period of time - which made the putting in of the first set of drops a little difficult, especially as I wouldn't allow my boyfriend (or anyone armed with eye drops) to come any nearer to me than 5 feet but, after he pointed out that he wouldn't be able to aim the drops into my eyes from across the room, I made a plan and managed to get them in myself.

When I did manage to keep my eyes open for a few seconds at a time, I could already tell that my vision was very good. By that night, they were still slightly gritty, but I could see well and at my follow up appointment the next day (yesterday) I had better than 20/20 vision, which is expected to IMPROVE over the next few days! Improve how?... I already feel like Bionic Woman with superhuman visual powers!

So...I hope this has been helpful. If you are scared about having this done, don't be. I know making an informed decision based on the one Pro..."You more than likely will see much better after this procedure" compared with the 5 pages of Cons..."things that can go wrong" that they hand you when you go for the consultation, is difficult but hey, how many posting have you read on this website about people who experience anything less than perfect vision afterwards?

Good luck!