This is my account of what happened on my treatment day on the 25th September in the Leeds clinic in case anyone is deciding whether to go ahead with treatment and wants to know more about what will happen.
I arrived at the clinic and was given a copy of the consent form to look at whilst helping myself to a drink. (I was booked in for ultralasik plus treatment). I surprised myself that I wasn’t more nervous but it did help that there were other people in the waiting room that had their surgery the previous day and seemed perfectly alright!
I was then led through to the pre-treatment room where hubby and I read some magazines for about 20 mins. Then it was time to get my eyes checked by the surgeon to see if everything was OK and answer any questions I had. The surgeon (Eduardo Fiaschetti) seemed really nice and even though he was relatively new to Ultralase, he put me at ease and was confident everything would be alright.
After about another 20 minute wait the nurse came to get me and went through when to use my eye drops, and showed me what to do with the eye guards to wear at night. She cleaned my eyes with this brown stuff (I think it was iodine) then administered the first of the anaesthetic eye drops. Then there was the ominous buzzing noise in the room which meant it was time for me to go through. This was the first point I began to feel really nervous and even asked the nurse about what would happen if the eye drops didn’t work!
Once in the treatment room everything seemed to go really quickly. I was told to lie on the bed with my head in the moulded headrest, then the surgeon put little white strips on my eyelashes to keep them out of the way – this was a little uncomfortable at first but ok once they were in place, and I was slid under the laser machine. The next thing was the thing I was most dreading – the eye clamp. For some reason this was different to what I was expecting and turned out to be (from what I could see) a metal ring which was put against my eyelids and he twisted the handle and it gently opened them up. Again this was uncomfortable but after a minute I couldn’t really feel it. The nurse then explained I was going to feel some pressure on my eye and I braced myself for the suction ring thing. Again it was good to have done some reading on this site as it prepared me for what it might feel like, although I had visualised a ring coming down from the machine above me but it was actually something the surgeon held in his hand. I was also warned beforehand that my vision would go black for a while, but it was just like someone had pressed the ‘fade out’ button on a camcorder and everything slowly disappeared – a very weird feeling! Then the ‘flap cutter’ was put on my eye and I could feel this little contraption going round on my eye in a circular motion – again very strange but not painful at all.
After that the surgeon moved the flap back and everything went very blurry. The nurse advised me how many laser phases there were going to be and counted as they went through the programme. I was expecting to be able to feel something but there was no sensation of this at all and only lasted about a minute in total. There was a slight smell but not that bad.
Then the surgeon replaced the flap and pushed it back in place – a very strange thing to see someone moving your eye back in place with a little plastic implement! The strips and clamp were removed and a contact lens put in and an eye guard put over my eye to cover it. Then it was off the bed to wait for them to prepare the laser for my left eye. This was fine but more sensitive as some people have said previously. And that was it!
I put my sunglasses on and went to greet hubby in the post-treatment room but my eyes weren’t as light sensitive as I thought they would be and my vision was already pretty clear!
I rested for the rest of the day but was amazed when I woke up only a few hours later and my vision was just about as clear as with my glasses.
It's now just a week since the op and my vision is as clear (if not clearer) as it was with my contacts/glasses and I’ve no pain or discomfort. It’s almost an anticlimax as I’d booked the week off work and was ready to be pampered but I feel fine apart from a slight dryness now as I’m working on the computer or watching TV for too long. I had my check-up the day after my treatment and even though they weren’t really concerned with my vision at this stage, was surprised when I could read the 3rd line up which is 20/20 vision. (I was previously –3.75 with astigmatism in both eyes).
Finally I'd just like to say that all the staff at Ultralase were excellent, I couldn't fault them.
If anyone has any queries, feel free to email me (elizabethmarles@hotmail.com). The procedure isn’t as bad as you build it up to be and the results are immediate and fantastic. I’d advise anyone wondering to go for it!