Optimax

I am giving this 5 stars as the result and the aftercare has been wonderful, but I have to say I would give only 2 stars for customer care prior to the surgery. My story is this: I had consultation with Dr Patel @ Finchley Road back in August, for proposed bilateral LASIK surgery. Found the initial customer service at the clinic very average and the topography consultation very quick with nothing explained. The actual consultation with Dr Patel consisted of a thorough eye test. He didn't chat much and didn't make any eye contact which left me feeling like it was an impersonal service, just another conveyor belt treatment. Also, he gave me some advice in response to a question and I later read on Ultralase's forum that it was very poor advice. Basically, if Optimax tell you it's ok to wear swimming goggles in the shower, this is NOT good advice as the pressure in the eye-cups can build up and dislodge the corneal flaps!! My surgery was booked for 5 Oct, but Optimax cancelled. They rebooked for 1 Nov. Guess what? They cancelled it again!! I was furious & complained. They told me they would send me a complaint logging form. It never arrived! Then I found this website & found some worrying stories which raised a question mark over my surgeon. I asked Optimax to provide me with a patient's telephone number who had used my surgeon. They gave me a name and number but after 2 weeks of calling I could not make contact. I asked for another patient. They promised to callback. They didn't!! I emailed Finchley Road. They did not respond. I'm sure you'll agree this does not instill any confidence & makes a patient question their decision. After a couple of further calls to Optimax Cust Svcs I heard stuff which reassured me. Dr Patel has performed more laser surgeries than any other surgeon. Also, on the cosmetic makeover TV series "10 years younger" Dr Patel is the surgeon used for all laser eye treatements. I was also told, if Dr Patel's name comes up more than other surgeons on these forums it's because he has done far more surgeries than anyone else, and people are quicker to complain than to praise. All of these things reassured me that I had made the right decision and I was 97% confident I was in very capable hands. Such a shame that the Cust Svc and admin side let Optimax down. My surgery was yesterday. Everyone was very kind and Dr Patel was lovely. He made eye contact with me as soon as I entered the operating theatre and welcomed me by my first name. He spoke to me throughout the surgery explaining what he was doing and asked me several times how I was doing. He was wonderful. The actual procedure was more uncomfortable than I'd expected but definitely NOT painful. My left eye was lasered for 60 secs, my right for 64 secs. What is NOT very pleasant is the smell of the eye burning during laser treatment! I also found the process easier to cope with if I thought of something else while it was going on. My advice to people is DEFINITELY take DARK sunglasses even if when you're leaving the clinic it is dark outside. You'll need the dark sunglasses for just sitting in a lit room. You'll want to keep your eyes closed a lot of the time. Straight after the surgery I had milky but sharp vision. Kind of like looking through a net curtain. For the first hour I had no reaction & coped brilliantly. I stayed at the Quality Hampstead Hotel just a 2 minute walk from Optimax. This was the best thing that could have happened, as after 1 hour, my eyes began to water and felt quite gritty. They were a little painful and I was very uncomfortable. If I had been travelling home when this happened I would not have coped. I had taken decongestant medication earlier and therefore I was unable to take painkillers on top. In hindsight I should have left off the decongestant & simply allowed for use of painkillers. Mind you, the unpleasantness only lasted 1 hour and when I administered my first dose of drops, it all subsided and within a couple of hours the milky vision cleared and I was amazed at the results. I couldn't get on with the eyes shields for sleeping so chose to keep my dark glasses on in bed securing them with tape. Much easier. This morning I could see amazing results. Vision felt a little unbalanced but as the day has gone on it's feeling loads better. The aftercare consultation this morning which was only 19 hours after surgery proved that I have almost 20/20 vision!! Amazing since I was -7 L & -7.25 R (from memory!). I have been able to leave off the dark glasses most of the time indoors however, for watching TV and using the computer I keep them on. I also keep them on outside to guard against dust & grit. I am thrilled with the results, thrilled with Dr Patel (thank you SO much!!), and thrilled with the aftercare. I recommend anyone to have this treatment. It's £1700 well spent. Please email me at fizzybangpop@hotmail.com if anyone has questions or comments.

I am going for consultation next Saturday 6th Nov, then all being well Epi-Lasek treatment two hours later, am feeling quite sick now, and have a another week to get through yet, I am under Dr Ilango, I do hope he is of a caring nature, his photo is not very reassuring, they should have got him to smile. Does everyone feel sick like me or am I just being a drama queen. If they tell me I can't have it done, after all this build up I will be so disappointed.

had epi-lasik done on 16/10/2004 12pm to correct my mildish shortsight problem. Got home about 1pm, pain kicked in about 3pm lasted about 4 hours, yes it was painful but not severe pain. I felt ok after that 4 hour period but was unable to open my eyes unless everything was pitch black, (I used eyemask over my sunglasses for the journey home and throughtout that day this helped stopped me rubbing/poking my eyes but also allowed all the tears that kept coming out). Next day no pain but very tired still so just slept. Tuesday evening 19/10/2004 could start to see the results and was able to pickout small letters/characters from a distance although general vision slightly blurred. So now friday evening small improvements day by day but still room for improvement that hopefully will come. Overall prefer my vision now to how it was.

I was VERY short sighted until I went to Optimax 3months ago and had EpiLasik treatment done. Now I have 20/20 vision thanks to them. I am ecstatic with the result. I now need someone else to pay me £500 to also have this treatment done as I have paid for 2 people in the "2 for 1" deal that they had running. Please contact me on 07981 537 376 for further info.

Bhav - I think it depends which clinic you attend - Newcastle was fantastic - everyone very talkative and asking how everthing was.

www.lasikdisaster.com www.which.co.uk (Which? Online: Laser eye surgery) (Subscription, though you may get free access from your library). I had PRK (not LASIK or LASEK) in my right eye only at Optimax 11 years ago, and have had problems ever since. I’ve only just come across this site, hence me only just posting. I went in with what I think is a fairly common trust that even though you are going to a commercial organisation, that some how, because they are medical trained, that you can trust that they have your best medical interests at heart. How naïve I was! The operation seemed to go OK, and my right eye myopia seemed cured. I was very happy! However, within a couple of months, I started having trouble reading. I was 40 at the time, and had read in the small print (though not counselled by Optimax) that correcting my short-sightedness might bring forward the time when I would need reading glasses, which they said was usually at age 45-50. I was unhappy that it happened immediately after the operation. I now believe that that they could have predicted this, had they wanted to. This was annoying, but I wouldn’t have complained too much if my left (untreated) eye, which had been stable all my adult life, decided to deteriorate. Now my left eye became worse than my right eye had been before the correction. I have seen many eye surgeons since them and they all say ‘Oh, I’ve never heard of that before’, and ‘Once you’ve reached adulthood, your eyesight should (in the absence of illness) remain more or less constant until your mid 50’s or later”. Worse was to come. I started to suffer from acute pain in the eye, which would last for a few hours. Optimax gave me ointments. These episodes (which I now know as Recurrent Corneal Erosion (RCE)), have made my life hell for the last 11 years. The condition has and is deteriorating. In the last seven weeks I’ve had 3 episodes resulting in me being bedridden, in acute pain, for 7 full days, and migraines for a day or two after each episode. And you don’t get any warning. I could be getting married that day, but if I have an episode, that’s it – cancel everything for the next 2 – 3 days. Reading the reviews of people who have successful correction, with no complications, you would think this operation is a no-brainer. Don’t be fooled. What you need to look at are ‘complication rates’. Research suggests that they are 5 – 10%. If you have two eyes done, that 10 –20% chance! And a lot of the complications that they call ‘minor’ are serious enough to mean that the person wishes they had never had the operation - like me. My RCE is considered ‘minor’ because I’m 20/20 in the eye, even though I sometimes feel I would gladly have the eye removed if that’s the only way to stop the RCE. To go back to the matter of trust. Can you imagine what it’s like for these guys? They’ve trained for years, earning a dull but decent crust. People are in awe of their knowledge and think they wonderful. Then someone invents an operation that a good percentage of the population might consider useful to have, but can’t get on the NHS. Suddenly these people have a commercial opportunity worth a mint! Many give up remedial work for commercial work completely. Even worse, some aren’t even trained opthalmologist, or have limited training. This area is NOT regulated by the government. “Currently, any doctor employed by a refractive surgery chain can operate after a laser surgery course of just a few days.” – Which Online: Laser Eye Surgery. If you think I’m exaggerating, you go round as a prospective patient to any of the providers and see how many offer you their ‘complication rates’ without you asking. Actually I bet it’s close to the number that are able to provide it when you ask for it – which I suspect is a nice round number – zero. You have been warned.

I had my consultation and epi-lasek treatment on the same day, 4/10/04. Customer service does not seem to be at the top of the list of priorities for Optimax, but fortunately I am seeing the benefits of the surgery after 4 days. Not too impressed that I was out of the door within 2 minutes of the procedure ending, with no time to relax and take it easy after a very uncomfortable 20 minutes in the treatment room. I was in agony for the first 48 hours but thankfully have improved since. On my return 3 days later to have the contact lensese removed, again, no customer service whatsoever; no questions about how it went and how I have been feeling. Out popped the lenses, a quick "can you read the top line, yes, your sight is okay for driving and see you in 2 weeks, goodbye". Not impressed!

I have had a consultation at the Bristol branch by Dr Fiachetti. I appreciate that these surgeons should be honest and straightforward but he was so abrupt and unenthusiastic that I left quite depressed and decided to wait longer. I have prescription of -6 and -5. Has anybody else had surgery by Dr Fiachetti or to that prescription? What was the outcome? He decided I could have Lasek but really piled on the possible problems. I have had a problem sometimes with I think it's called 'persistent erosion' where when I wake up and open my eye the surface is scratched. This heals in a about thirty minutes, but he suggested it may get worse due to 'dry eye'. But I don't suffer with dry eyes at the moment. Would welcome comments from anybody but particularly anyone that has had this problem. From reading comments on other companies - they seem to successfully treat much higher prescriptions than Optimax - Dr Fiaschetti indicated that I was on the limit.

Am 27, I had Epi Lasek treatment at the birmingham optimax clinic. My eyes were -2.00 and -1.50 astigmatism 0.5, Pupil diameter 7.5mm When my puils were measured I was a bit concerned about the size, I was told I would get an increased glare/starbursting but it would be minor due to my mild refractive error. They used the vison simulator ( http://www.lasik-center.com/simulator/index.html ) to show what my vision would be like at a worse case scenerio and to me it wasnt that bad at all. Its now been 2.5 weeks after surgery and my eyesight is +0.5 and +0.25 . This is an excellent result. THey predict after treatment vision will be slighltey longsighted and this should diminish in a month. AS my eyesight is at the moment I dont notice any problems with short distance vision. reading is fine, driving is fine. THe increase in glare/ starbursting is mild, the predicted vision on the freevsion website was very accurate in my case. The lights do seem a little brighter because of the glare but doesnt affect my night driving. It should reduce gradually as the weeks go by but even if it doesnt I am still happy as the glare is only slight. The consulation itself didnt seem thorough enough for my liking. As i heavily researched laser surgery on the net I already knew what test they should carry out, questions to ask, and my case was fairly straight forward being mild short sighed. I wasnt given an eye guard either and they were running late on the day of my treatment.Im sure other clinics focus more on patient care but you pay for what you get. Im still glad i went ahead with it. Wearing glasses was like being the man in the iron mask. Its definately increased my confidence not wearing glasses and now i can use eye flirting skills to maximum potential :)

I had laser eye surgery yesterday at Optimax in Newcastle. I have to say the whole experience was excellent. After the treatment I had a real burning sensation which lasted about four hours. I can only compare it to a similar feeling of tear gas or pepper spray - although I had never had that either. Today I feel fantastic and I would say my eyes are about 95% correct with a little gritty feeling occasionally only in one eye. They said this could last weeks so I am very grateful. The staff, doctor and procedure were excellent. If you are having any doubts go to an open day - some due shortly.