Ultralase

Update: I had the surgery about 48 hours ago. Everyone was very helpful, and everything went smoothly. My eyes were light sensitive and my vision was blurry for about 4 hours afterwards. By the morning after my eyes felt normal, and my vision was similar to when I’m wearing glasses. I’ve been told it should improve further over the next few weeks.
I am very impressed with my treatment and will report back at the end of the month as to how good my eyesite is. My only complaint is that I’ve seen a total of 6 different people over the consultation/surgery/first checkup. I know it’s probably easier to fit more people in this way, and that each of the jobs can be performed by a different person, but it would have been nice to have a least one of the people consistently around during the whole thing.

Had my consultation a few days ago, which was all very reassuring, and so far I’m very impressed. So much so, I’ve booked an appointment in May to be treated by Farokh Irani at the Bristol branch. I’d be very grateful for any information/reassurance from patients he has treated. Thanks.

I am 30 years old, and at -9.5 in the left eye and -6 in the right, with terrible astigmatisms, I have worn glasses for 25 years. (contact lenses are a pain in the arse). I thought I would be waisting my time, but Ultralase who have some of the best results statistics, and operate upto -14 assured me I was curable. (Boots said No, but only because it keeps their statistics high, operating up to -8 AND optimax. Well they just scared me!
Once I met the nurse and the optician, I felt very comfortable at my consultation. I booked for the soonest available appointment. Paid for it with a new Barclaycard and will worry about that later.
What they do tell you, and what they don’t —
-You have to wear Space Monkey Goggles in bed at at night for a month.
-You don’t see the clamp on your eye – It just appears painlessly in less than a second.
-The room doesn’t go dark or scarey – you just get very blurry vision and someone holds your hand and talks to you gently.
-There are no loud noises and nothing to make you think about “the Gory bit”
– Its over in minutes.
-You will not be the one person that it goes wrong for. (thats usually me and it didnt happen beacuse they don’t operate if they are not sure)
-MR Gupta should get an OBE
-The opposite sex will be more attracted to you! Even if your face looks like a smacked arse – it will look better without spectacles!
Its been a month now and I feel so brave. All that fear beforehand, stopped me and when I finally did it, it was no worse than an eye examination! I was so scared before the operation that I nearly cried (the nurse then gave me some Valium and I became Mr cool (which hasn’t lasted). Email me now if you are unsure or check out the ultralase website for an instant check and within a month you will loose all that scaffolding round you face too. God Bless you Mr Gupta.

Well, I was treated on 12/2/02 in Hammersmith. My eyesight was (L)-4.0. 0.75cyl 010ax (r)-2.75 2.25cyl 180ax. The surgeon was Vinod Gupta.I had my initial assesment at Bristol and was impressed enough to go ahead with the surgeon of my choice.I chose Mr Gupta because he was the most experienced and performed surgery on another surgeon so must be trustworthy! So I went to Hammersmith for the treatment. There was a guy looking in on the procedure.Mr Gupta was very confident, and we agreed to go for a slight over correction as I wanted to make sure!Whether he did or not I dont know because after the day of surgery you dont get to see the surgeon again…just the optometrists! Anyway the surgery went well and the clamp and flap cutter presented no problems. However when the time came to look at the centre of the light I could not do it and tried to have the procedure stopped.This was ignored as apparently my eye was not moving enough to stop it! I could keep the eye still for the 2nd procedure.Both flaps were cut well according to the surgeon.All in all not a difficult procedure to have done.30 mins later I was in a lot of discomfort however but still able to make out 6/12.
The rest of the day was spent in bed in a darkened hotel room 2mins walk from the clinic.A big thank you to my good friend Jerry G who lives in H’smith and came round to cheer me up,see how I was getting on and help me put.His lovely daughter Laurien used to work at Ultralase which was a coincidence I found out after the booking.6 hrs after the op I felt well enough to go for a short walk outside but still had blurred vision.MY EYES WERE AND REMAINED VERY LIGHT SENSITIVE FOR A FEW DAYS and even now on very bright days I do get some mild discomfort akin to snowblindness.Please note that the first drops that go in to your eyes is like putting lemon juice in your eyes – not pleasant at all.Next day for the check up- flaps in place and read the chart….left eye 6/4. Right eye definitely worse than left however according to eye chart can also read 6/4, but blurred and heavily ghosted.After one week settled down a little but essentially the same.I feel personally that the right does not see as clearly as well as the left because I did not have the eye fully centred under the laser and the surgeon continued anyway. However one has to put it in perpective…it is a reasonably good result after all!
Will keep you informed of the rest of my experiences.

Have now had my initial consultation at the Bristol branch, and so far so good!
Everyone was very helpful, and I didn’t feel under any pressure to make an appointment.
Each of the eyetests was explained to me, and all my questions were answered.
I intend to ask the surgeon some more questions on the day as it may be that they don’t operate on my left eye -as there isn’t much wrong with it. I’d rather they didn’t if it won’t make much difference, as I can always have it done at a later date if my vision isn’t good enough and I don’t want to waste that much money!
I’m going for the actual surgery in a couple of weeks..so I’ll let you know how it goes!