Optimax

Had my left eye done with PRK on 24/6/02 at the Edinburgh clinic.Staff very friendly and informative,the surgeon talked me through the whole operation.A little pain for about an hour after the op(a painkiller and an hours sleep took care of that!).Was driving the next morning and could already see an improvement in my sight.Had my first check up on 27/6/02 and optician was surprised to find my eye almost healed and my sight now 6/6!Had second check up on 12/7/02 and eye is fully healed.Get my right eye done on 19/7/02 – hope it is as easy as the left.I would highly recommend the clinic so far.

This is a follow up report to the one I posted in March when the LASIK procedure was initially performed.
After a couple of weeks had passed I became aware that my vision in low light conditions was not as good as in daylight. This appears as “ghosting” or almost double vision when watching TV etc. I find myself screwing up my eyes to see more clearly and usually end up with a headache (and presumably bad wrinkles in the future!). Driving at night on badly lit roads is distinctly dodgy!
At the first 6 week check I was told that this may be due to the “smoothing” of my eye contour with the laser around where the actual correction had taken place.
At the last 6 week check my prescription had worsened from -0.25 both eyes to -0.5 in both eyes. The explanation now is that this is due to how my eyes have healed from the initial procedure. They think that the poor lowlight vision is simply down to being under corrected. I’m going back again in another 6 weeks. If the prescription has stabilised at -0.5 then they have offered a second LASIK procedure so as to “fine tune” things closer to zero.
I’m not too bothered about the situation but would love to get a second opinion just to confirm what Optimax say before I go under the knife again. Trouble is where do you go? Am thinking of calling in to my friendly local optician for a standard eye test. If he finds that I am in fact -0.5 then I will get some glasses made up (using my old frames which luckily I have kept) just to confirm to myself that this does sort things out.
Anyone with similar experiences or any comments/suggestions please feel free to eamil me.

PRK treatment – A testimony of laser eye surgery

The Consultation
Thursday April 18th 2002
Somerset Eye Clinic
Somerset Place
Glasgow

My full experience can be found at www.LASIK-eyes.co.uk/reviews/pt.htm

Please visit this site to follow my progress.

Consultation- mid March with Dr ALMASRI. Prsc: L -2.5, R -2.25 with astigmatism. Recommended PRK (epi-flap).

Surgery 21/4/02. Went for Bilat op. Fast & easy procedure. Applied bandage contact lens (u need to request this). Only pain suffered was when the bandage contact lens were removed, I was very light sensitive. I recommend to take somebody with you when getting bandage lens removed.

During the first 5 weeks the vision fluctuated but last 2 weeks it has stabilised. Went for check-up on Sat (8/6/02). Success!! L&R -0.25 with no astigmatism! I have another checkup in 2 months.

Genrally, with PRK you will need patience as the healing does take time, but I would recommend PRK over LASIK (in my opinion). Any q’s pls email.

I had PRK on my left eye in 1996. I had about -7.5 myopia, and they corrected for -6.02. (Presumably the .02 is so that their statistics don’t get too badly messed up if anything goes wrong!). The (sound) idea was to leave me -1.5 to allow good reading vision in that eye. I seem to remember that the laser was stopped during the op. and I noticed that the light I was supposed to be looking at moved significantly, maybe because it was difficult to see it with all the tears that were flooding my eye. Eye healed very well and quickly with almost no pain, but after about a week I noticed that light sources at night were producing an irregular flare pattern, indicating a ‘decentred ablation’ which happens when the eye moves during the op. (Optimax have never admitted to this and say it’s because of my ‘irregular healing’, but on the corneal map you can see it’s off-centre by about 1.75mm. and I have ‘induced astigmatism’ of about +2.5). After 6 months the result was stable. I can see OK in bright sunlight, but night vision is really messed up. Optimax have been sympathetic, but despite promises, never really suggested a strategy to correct the problem. Luckily a high street optician recommended a gas-permeable contact lens which is only slightly more rigid than normal (not more expensive either) and smoothes out the cornea. So at night I can wear this to get 20/20 vision with no flare. The right eye is still untreated -8.00, so normally I wear a regular contact in this eye and nothing in the left eye and despite what they say, I have no problems caused by difference in image size in the two eyes. Also as I’m over 40, I do ‘monovision’ which means the right contact focuses for reading and the left eye is for distance.
In general I’m still glad I had the op. I can see some TV without correction and I’m waiting for the day when a reliable method of correcting my now-irregular cornea is available. The most promising method seems to involve first moulding a collagen lens to the cornea and simply retreating as on a normal eye. ‘Custom ablation’ using a flying-spot scanner doesn’t seem to work. Either way I won’t have the right eye done until the left is 20/20. I can’t blame Optimax as they were pioneers and warned me of all the risks, although I think they were understated. On the consent form you more or less sign away your eyesight.
Also I think people like to exaggerate their claims for improved vision, saying things like ‘I now have 20/20 vision’ when they don’t say what their night vision is like. Probably a lot of people who claim 20/20 vision shouldn’t be driving at night. This is a new problem which didn’t arise before corneal correction procedures.