I had PRK for both eyes at the Manchester Clinic in mid August. They had offer on at the time (£795 for both eyes). I didn't know this when I booked and so the saving was very pleasant surprise when I came to write out the cheque. Dr Garston did the treatment, and he and all the staff were very professional. The procedure wasn't at all painful and I was surprised that I could see afterwards, although rather blurry. They ask you to have someone to accompany you home, but as I had to have someone at home to look after my children, this wasn't possible for me. The staff were fine about walking me to the taxi rank (less than 50 metres from clinic)and I had no difficulty as taxi dropped me at the door. Driver offered to help, but in fact I could see well enough to manage.

The clinic nurse told me that most people don't experience much in the way of pain after PRK, but men seem to be more affected than women. She predicted that I wouldn't experience pain and she was right. I took the painkillers first couple of days but this was really a preventative action. Didn't need the sleeping tablets as slept fine without them. Found it very difficult to get the antiseptic eye cream in my eyes when I couldn't see them up close. Eyes were sensitive to light at times and sunglasses essential wear outdoors for first week. (But then my eyes were bit like that beforehand - I used to wear reactolite glasses.) The main problem after treatment was boredom as I couldn't read or watch TV. Visits and phonecalls from friends helped, my children took some turns to amuse me, and glad I'd thought to get a couple of audio books beforehand. My vision was poor at follow up appointment 7 days after the laser treatment. I couldn't read the largest letter on the eye chart with either eye. The ophthalmologist told me that my eyes were just a bit slow in healing and that my vision would improve within a couple of days. Sure enough it did. I reckon my sight was good enough to drive at 10 days, but waited until further check up before doing so. At 14 days my eyes were -0.5 in right eye and +0.5 in left. The clinic warned of possiblity of regression. It is now about 6 weeks after laser treatment and right eye has become a bit more shortsighted, although left eye remains fine. However, I've discovered there is advantage to having a slightly shortsighted eye, as I am in my 40s and this allows me to read okay, and both eyes together are fine for distance vision. I know that if my slightly shortsighted eye were at 0.0 then I would need to wear reading glasses. So I'm hoping it stays like this as I've got the best of both worlds at the moment - not needing glasses for either shortsightedness nor reading. I'll leave another post here in some weeks to let you know if any changes. I can thoroughly recommend optimax and PRK. Although PRK takes a bit longer for recovery, please do consider it if you are thinking about LASIK. Retaining the integrity of the eyeball seems to me to be a big plus, especially in case of accident/blow to the eye in future. Good luck!