Had my eyes lasered yesterday afternoon, was quite an experience! I have seen a few posts about this in the past so thought I'd say a little bit about it here and answer any questions any of you might have.
Got mine done at Optical Express in Cambridge and went for the more expensive WaveForm treatment can't for the life of me remember whether it was Lasik or Lasek though. Instead of a mechanical method to create the flap they use a laser. The whole process took about 15 mins if that. Initially they put some anesthetic drops in your eyes and then put a plastic ring in your eye to stop it shutting. It was quite odd seeing peoples fingers pushing it about to fit properly.
At this point a huge machine is lowered over me with a circular bit which fits on top of the plastic ring. The pressure was pretty uncomfortable and i did think if they keep lowering it my eye is going to explode! The laser bit is painless and they quickly moved onto cutting a flap in my other eye. They then spun the bed round to another machine. This was probably the most freak out moment as i was completely blind. All i could see was swirls of light.
The second machine performs the correction. As before a large machine is lowered but there was no pressure whatsoever. Even in my blind state i could see a large ring of lights with a smaller ring in the center. Then you get told not to move and i was terrified of twitching so that it all messed up. It took a little while longer than the first process and was accompanied by the smell of burning eye ball (I've had the snip so this didn't disturb me at all but can imagine it would be bad for some). There was a lot of clicking which is the laser at work. Once done they wiped and pushed the flap down.
After that i'm off to a dark room with my sunglasses on and am told to keep my eyes closed until i get collected by my mate. Straight back to mine and in bed in a dark room with my sunglasses on still. My eyes were very light sensitive. At first it didn't feel too bad at all but then my eyes started watering constantly. This didn't stop for 6 hours which was very irritating. It then slowed down so i only had minimal watering. The next thing was a feeling of grit in my eyes. 3 lots of eye drops to take but none of them really helped with the grit feeling.
Today its a lot better, still gritty with a bit of eye watering but very bearable so i was back at work. My eyes are pretty red still and a bit light sensitive but this is easing all the time. Had a follow up test at about 10:30 in the morning and achieved 20-20 vision easily. I'm told my vision will sharpen up even more over the next week. Have a weeks worth of eye drops to take, cant wet my eyes, cant do any sport for a week. I can start jogging and weights next week but no contact stuff for 4 weeks.
The staff throughout were great, i was told at each stage exactly how many seconds were left and they were very good at trying to keep me relaxed. At present, unless my eyes fall out i would definitely recommend it.
Got mine done at Optical Express in Cambridge and went for the more expensive WaveForm treatment can't for the life of me remember whether it was Lasik or Lasek though. Instead of a mechanical method to create the flap they use a laser. The whole process took about 15 mins if that. Initially they put some anesthetic drops in your eyes and then put a plastic ring in your eye to stop it shutting. It was quite odd seeing peoples fingers pushing it about to fit properly.
At this point a huge machine is lowered over me with a circular bit which fits on top of the plastic ring. The pressure was pretty uncomfortable and i did think if they keep lowering it my eye is going to explode! The laser bit is painless and they quickly moved onto cutting a flap in my other eye. They then spun the bed round to another machine. This was probably the most freak out moment as i was completely blind. All i could see was swirls of light.
The second machine performs the correction. As before a large machine is lowered but there was no pressure whatsoever. Even in my blind state i could see a large ring of lights with a smaller ring in the center. Then you get told not to move and i was terrified of twitching so that it all messed up. It took a little while longer than the first process and was accompanied by the smell of burning eye ball (I've had the snip so this didn't disturb me at all but can imagine it would be bad for some). There was a lot of clicking which is the laser at work. Once done they wiped and pushed the flap down.
After that i'm off to a dark room with my sunglasses on and am told to keep my eyes closed until i get collected by my mate. Straight back to mine and in bed in a dark room with my sunglasses on still. My eyes were very light sensitive. At first it didn't feel too bad at all but then my eyes started watering constantly. This didn't stop for 6 hours which was very irritating. It then slowed down so i only had minimal watering. The next thing was a feeling of grit in my eyes. 3 lots of eye drops to take but none of them really helped with the grit feeling.
Today its a lot better, still gritty with a bit of eye watering but very bearable so i was back at work. My eyes are pretty red still and a bit light sensitive but this is easing all the time. Had a follow up test at about 10:30 in the morning and achieved 20-20 vision easily. I'm told my vision will sharpen up even more over the next week. Have a weeks worth of eye drops to take, cant wet my eyes, cant do any sport for a week. I can start jogging and weights next week but no contact stuff for 4 weeks.
The staff throughout were great, i was told at each stage exactly how many seconds were left and they were very good at trying to keep me relaxed. At present, unless my eyes fall out i would definitely recommend it.
