I had Epi-Lasek with Wavefront at the Finchley Rd clinic with Dr Patel on 1st Dec 2006. I was expecting to have Lasik so I was surprised and pleased when the dr recommended the cheaper one for me.
The treatment was almost painless, but uncomfortable.
It took me a little over half an hour to get home, by which time the anaesthetic was wearing off and I was in some degree of pain in my left eye. An hour later I was in agony. My left eye swelled up, was bright red, weeping constantly, and was so painful I had to sit in the dark with every light in the house off, no TV, blackout curtains drawn, AND sunglasses on, and it was still too bright.
I had to take the sleeping tablet they gave me on saturday night just to drop off to sleep. On sunday I was no better at all and so phoned the helpline. They said I couldnt bring my appointment forward as there were no spaces and didn't count pain as an emergency as Epi-Lasek did carry some amount of pain for some people. All they could do for me was to bring the appt forward from 5pm to 11am on the tuesday.
I spent the rest of the time in so much pain, I have never cried so much in my life. I couldnt do anything and lived in the dark, listening to talk radio :o(
I had to use the anaesthetic drops to relieve some of the pain I was in, but it wouldnt go away.
On Tuesday I got all the way to the Finchley Road clinic (I was having the bandage contact lenses removed) only to be told that the dr was off sick and they would have to reschedule my appt. Bearing in mind that I looked such a state and was still in agony, I just couldnt believe what they were saying!!! My boyfriend was just about to kick off, luckily the other receptionist saw my eye and asked one of the other dr's to take a look. I was very relieved!!!
The dr asked how I felt and I told him that it was the most painful thing I had ever gone through in my life. I explained that my right eye appeared to be fine and wasnt painful at all, but told him of the problems and pain with the left eye. He took a look at my eye through the microscope thing and said I had a bit of infiltrate on my left eye.
He put an anaesthetic drop into each eye and slowly slid the bandage lens off. Immediately when he had done this I felt such a sense of relief, and the pain disappeared right away! He inspected the lens and told me that there had been a particle of dirt trapped between my eye and the lens and every single time I had blinked over the last 4 days it had been cutting into my eye. No wonder it hurt so damn much!!!!!
I then had the eye test and was absolutely gutted. My left eye was still short sighted. I cried all the way home I was so disappointed with the whole thing.
I was really angry that what was supposed to be a sterile environment had somehow done this to my eye. How had the dirt got underneath the lens? I can only assume it was done during the surgery.
Anyway, it took a few days for the runny eye to stop, meanwhile I was still taking the drops exactly as instructed, and any time I went out I wore my sunglasses. I wasn’t going to take any chances!
It took three weeks, but overnight (quite literally) my left eye healed itself and when I went back to the clinic the dr confirmed that I have 20/20 vision.
I still have to wear my sunglasses whenever I go out, even when its not sunny (which is a bit embarrassing but I can handle that!!!), and I have another check up on 3rd feb to see if the haze has gone.

My overview of my treatment and results:
I was disappointed that I had so much trouble at the start, but like with childbirth, you soon forget about the pain and concentrate on the end result. And now my eyesight is restored to “normal” I am extremely happy that I had it done.
I am pleased with Optimax, and just have to put my experience down as bad luck. Their aftercare has been excellent. It is the most liberating thing to now be able to see, and is quite hard to get used to, but I get realisations on a daily basis of what I can now do that I couldn’t do before without glasses!!! I would definitely recommend having it done.