Optical Express

Four days in from having standard LASEK peformed at the Manchester branch by Mr Khan. Obviously, my recovery is still ongoing but I thought I'd let everyone know what I think so far. First off, let's get my only gripe out of the way. For anyone considering Optical Express, forget the £395 price they put about. My price was £695 per eye. You may be lucky, but don't bank on it. Nonetheless, £695 is still on the low-end of the price range so I was happy. Now on to the good stuff. I attended my consultation, where I was seen by Alain. Like all other Manchester Optical Express staff I have seen subsequently, Alain was friendly, approachable and staunchly professional. After a thorough examination of my eyes, he said that I was a good candidate for standard LASEK. I asked about Wavefront, but he intimated that for a -2.00 (both eyes) prescription, the extra expense probably wasn't really worth it. He also explained that as my pupils are slightly larger than normal (7mm as opposed to 6mm) that I may stand the risk of hazing. However, he then told me (which corresponded to my own investigation) that at such a small prescription it was unlikely to cause any problems. I then asked why I was better off with LASEK instead of LASIK, and he told me about the pros and cons of each procedure. Basically, because of my pupils, and the fact that I play rugby, the flap could be something of an issue. I also believe he mentioned that LASEK was the main procedure performed at Manchester. The one sticking point was that I had a small lump in my left eye. On closer inspection, this proved to be a very slightly infected tear duct. They packed me off with some chloramphenicol which completely sorted that out. As a result though, I had to wait just over a month for my surgery. That surgery was performed on Friday 14th April by Mr Khan, as mentioned above. Once again, Mr Khan and his entire surgery team exuded the friendly professional confidence of people who have been doing what they do for many years. I couldn't have asked for better. The procedure itself was unusual, to say the least, but I wouldn't say I felt any real pain during it. The most uncomfortable stage was having the 'eyelid-stretchers' removed. At each step through the procedure, what was happeneing was explained to me, and my girlfriend viewing the proceedings with a queasy stomach from the viewing booth, seeing exactly what Mr Khan was seeing. There was no pain, however, and it was over in about 15 minutes. After the surgery, my vision was slightly like a 70s porn film - as if vaseline had been smeared on my eyes. I was given a very clear and concise talk about what I needed to do post-op by a member of the surgery team. I have been given a cocktail of eye-drops to take, from artificial tears to steroids, and they're all going in fine. Post-op, I've felt, once again, no real pain as I would describe it. I appreciate that I may be a lucky one, but my eyes don't seem to have minded that much. In fact, my left eye seems to have been caught off guard and is winning the healing race by a margin. The right eye has been a little uncomfortable at times, but is bearing up well. My sight is unquestionably better in my left at the moment, which can be a little disconcerting, but I'm sure the right is catching up. In summation, I'll say that I've read a lot of questions about Optical Express along the lines of 'But they're cheap, surely they skimp somewhere?'. Well, having never used another clinic (obviously :)), I can't make a comparison, but I can't feasibly think of any way in which I'd improve Optical Express Manchester. The staff were absolutely first-class, enjoyed a bit of banter, but during the procedure were consummately professional. The equipment, which I believe to be the B&L Technolas 217z, is hailed by B&L as 'the world's leading excimer laser for personalized vision correction'. I may write another report on how my eyes are shaping up. One thing I would say to people recommended LASEK, bear in mind that it does take time for all your sight to come back. I was lucky in that the day after I had it done, my left eye was working pretty well. However, I may well have at least another week before it is perfect (touch wood :) All in all, the Manchester Optical Express has guided me through this possibly traumatic experience admirably. I'd have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone (even if I didn't £100 cashback for each person I recommend) :) If you can avoid the slightly 'marketing-speak' approach of the parent company, then you'll be very happy.

I am having my eyes lasered in May and am just wondering if anyone has any information about how sucessful the procedure is for people with long sighted vision (I am +4.00).

Had Lasik on April 6th in Newcastle. The surgeon Dr Jain was excellent. The procedure is just as most have described (uncomfortable but painless) My sight after 4 hours was astounding compared to pre-op. It has continued to improve every day. Only nightime driving is strange due to glare and halos but I am told this will improve in the coming weeks. I can only recommend anyone thinking about laser eye surgery to go for it.

I had Lasik Wavefront at Leeds on 14 April. I should've had it done on 11 April but there was a problem with the laser so I was sent home (better safe than sorry!). I haven't been overly impressed with the service as, among other things, I was told at my consultation that there wouldn't be any real benefit in me having Wavefront but when I met the surgeon he told me that I ought to have Wavefront as people with larger pupils are more likely to suffer glare etc at night. Rather than taking the risk I paid the extra £800 to have the more advanced surgery. The surgery itself was over really quickly. I was worried about the flaps being cut but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected. It wasn't pleasant but wasn't painful either. I kept my eyes closed on the way home as it was really sunny and went straight to bed when I got in. My surgery was finished by 5:30pm and by 8:45pm I was reading a takeaway menu (although still with my sunglasses on)! The next day I could see clearly (as well I had with glasses or contact lenses) and had no pain at all. I had my check up the day after surgery and everything was fine. Now I just need to take my drops and remember that I don't need to take my contact lenses out before bed! Very impressed with the surgery and pleased that I chose Lasik over Lasek after much deliberation, although the choice depends on each individual. If you decide to go ahead with the surgery try not get too worked up beforehand as its probably not going to be half as bad as you imagined and the results are well worth it.

HELP! Has anyone been to optical Express in Reading and had surgeon Mr Kheterpal. I have had a consultation and can have Lasik, Lasek and Wavefront but dont know which one to go for. I have to say the thought of the flap makes me feel squemish but I would love to hear from people that have had either and their experiences. After reading certain reviews I feel like just carrying on with my glasses but would love the freedom that laser brings.

I am due to have a consultation at Shaftesbury Ave this Thursday and if I go ahead, to have the surgery at Bluewater. Can anyone see this being a problem and does anyone have any feedback about surgery at Bluewater - especially the names of the surgeons who you would recommend or would not recommend. Many thanks.

It has been 7 weeks since i had lasek wavefront at birmingham. On recent check-up been told left eye is still -0.25 this may not sound a lot but when the other eye is perfect it is really annoying. starting to worry now that the left eye wont catch up with the right. I know it can take 3-6 months but if anyone has had similar experience please e-mail me and let me know. thanks

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!

I HAD LASIK WAVEFRONT LASER EYE SURGERY AT OPTICAL EXPRESS GLASGOW PERFORMED BY DR S BOYTHA ON 8TH MARCH.MY VISION AFTER 24HRS WAS AMAZING. AFTER OVER 20 YRS OF WEARING CONTACT LENSES I CAN NOW SEE FOR MILES BETTER THAN 20/20.THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN LIFE CHANGING AND ON THE DAY OF SURGERY EVERYTHING WAS VERY PROFESSIONALLY DONE.ALL THE STAFF MAKE YOUN FEEL RELAXED AND THE PROCEDURE ITSELF IS PAINLESS AND OVER IN A MATTER OF MINUTES.I WOULD RECOMMEND OPTICAL EXPRESS TO EVERYONE THINKING ABOUT HAVING LASER EYE SURGERY.EUROPE'S NUMBER ONE PROVIDER WILL SOON BE NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD.ONE MONTH ON AND AFTER ANOTHER AFTERCARE APPOINTMENT THE OPTOMETRIST GAVE ME ANOTHER THOUROUGH CHECK UP MY VISION CONTINUES TO IMPROVE THE SERVICE LEVEL INSTORE HAS BEEN VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE.AS THE ADVERT SAID ,EYE CARE WE CARE OPTICAL EXPRESS CERTAINLY DO CARE FOR ALL THEIR PATIENTS TO A VERY IMPPRESSIVE LEVEL.

I had Lasik surgery 3 months ago, peformed by Mr. George at Birmingham. I am absolutely delighted with the results. I now have slightly better than 20/20 vision. The surgery was not painful in any way, although I was nervous but the staff were very reassuring. I had the surgery at 2.00pm and was able to watch television without glasses at 8.00pm that same evening. I have had all my checks at Nottingham, where once again I cannot praise the staff highly enough, and am now discharged. I have had no problems whatsoever, no dry or watering of the eyes, no pain or discomfort. On the whole the experience was so much better than I anticipated. I am now able to "come out from behind my glasses" and it has given such a boost to my confidence. Thank you to you all.