I had bi-lateral epi-lasek treatment at Birmingham Optimax in March 2006. I was about -1.75 in each eye with a bad astigmatism.

I was seen and treated by Andre Obersholster. Andre was helpful and honest during the consultation, agreeing that he was able to achieve 20/20 vision with epi-lasek rather than lasik.

Treatment wasn’t as bad as expected, except he didn’t put enough anaesthetic in the first eye so I felt them scraping off the surface. The second eye was fine because I’d piped up and asked for more as it hurt. An unpleasant operation, but it was only 15 minutes start to finish. Very satisfying to smell your eyes burning. It felt like getting good value for money…

The three day recovery time was agonising. I was in constant, searing pain for two days, and fair to reasonable discomfort for the third. Having the bandage lenses was one of the best experiences in my adult life. The relief was unbelievable.

My vision took about two weeks to come back to a reasonable standard. Using a PC was fine, but I recommend taking breaks every 30 minutes or so. I was driving four days after the operation. At my after care appointments I was told that my vision was slowly getting better. At about eight weeks after treatment, I started to feel my eyesight deteriorate. This gradually got worse until, by six months, Optimax had agreed that I had regressed to a worse standard of sight than before. I wasn’t so happy about the whole thing, but I had to wait a further four weeks for another consultation.

The optometrist who saw me the second time round casually steered me away from Dr Oberholster toward Dr Madhusudhan. I kept asking why, but they were fairly evasive. This time my consultation lasted the best part of three hours and I was seen by two optometrists and by Dr Madhusudhan. It was decided that I would have been better off all along with lasik, rather than epi-lasek. I was understandably annoyed that I wasn’t told that in the first place, but carried on regardless.

My main gripe was being asked to pay extra for the re-treatment. After a decent sized row with the staff at Birmingham, they agreed that I shouldn’t have to pay extra for treatment that I didn’t even want. I was never keen of the flap idea and the eye being weakened.

Lasik surgery was a tad more unpleasant then epi-lasek. But still over in fifteen minutes. I watched Dr Madhusudhan place the flap back down three times on one eye, so he could get it to seal perfectly. Surreal.

The pain that night was 75% of the pain on epi-lasek. People who have no pain with lasik are lucky, as mine was fairly bad. I slept well. The next morning I had no pain. Just a little discomfort as Dr Madhusudhan had used bandage lenses.

When I had them out the day after treatment, I was nearly 20/20. Three months after the lasik, I have finally been discharged. With a confirmed bi-lateral 20/20.

As everyone says in this forum – it is truly life changing to have the surgery. Despite the re-treatment, I’d recommend it to anyone. I have recommended three people to Optimax using their referral process. Be wary that you have to really chase them for the £25. Months for one of my referrals……….

Staff at Birmingham are polite and efficient. The manager never did ring me back to finally agree to re-treat me for free. Instead, choosing to make me wait for the day o f my treatment to let me find out the good news. I never had a straight answer to my question – “Did Dr Obersholster mess up my treatment?” I did have plenty of inferences and hints to confirm that, though.

Don’t pay more than £895. Just ring them and tell them that you saw it on eBay. Enter into the process with an open mind, and be mindful that it can be a surgical process as opposed to a one hit wonder.