Questions about laser eye surgery?

Hi,

I’d reccomend that you have a look at the following website: http://www.lasik-eyes.co.uk It contains information on all the laser eye surgery providers in the UK as well as plenty of information from and for people like yourself who are about to engage in treatment.

If you do one thing, research your treatment very well. This is not a very well regulated industry nor is this ‘like going to the dentist’. Once you have treatment done, you cannot reverse it.

Be weary of promises to improve your vision (this is not possible with laser) with various fancy sounding techniques (with the added increase in cost). Often you are quoted a particular price and treatment only for the surgeon to suggest a better/more suitable (and much more expensive) form of treatment 5 minutes before you are due to have laser.

You certainly want to have treatment done with the people/company that you trust the most. The above website has good information, read some of the forums about surgeons / companies etc and perhaps ask people on the site for further information about the particular individuals that are to carry out your treatment.

As with most things, if you want something done cheap along with average service and quality you go to ASDA or TESCO etc. Likewise with Laser eye surgery you get the ‘conveyor belt, take a number’ treatment at Optimax, Optical Express and Ultralase (also known as LASIK mills). My suggestion would be to find yourself a smaller, independent specialist - they are often surprisingly cheaper besides being a whole heap better. Lasik-eyes will point you in the right direction. (£395 per eye - forget it. I’ve worked in these places, it doesn’t exist. Known as the ‘Bait and Switch’ Tactic)

Hope this helps

PS: In more specific terms: LASEK is a term applied to a form of Surface Laser Treatment, others include PRK and Trans-epi All Laser treatment. They are different in terms of mode: LASEK uses an alcohol solution (18%) to weaken the epithelium prior to removal, PRK uses a small instrument called a ‘Hockey knife’ to scape the tissue off, Trans-epi All Laser uses an excimer laser to remove the epithelium prior to treatment.

At a prescription of -5.00, some (read large commercial) clinics will want to perform a surface treatment with the aid of Mitomycin C to reduce the potential for haze. MMC is a drug used for Bowell Cancer and is not licensed in the UK - be very aware of this as it is normally hidden in and amongst the consent forms. The countries top surgeons are very much against the use of this drug, it’s application is difficult to measure and it has shown no evidence of a reduction in haze. Destructive power it certainly has.

In terms of what your boyfriend is trying to do - you cannot improve vision by have laser surgery. So far as I am aware - there is no regulation against the wearing of glasses (I could well be wrong here). What would be very useful to know besides the prescription is his Visual Acuity both with correction and without - it is normally written next to his prescription in the form 6/x where x could be 4, 5, 6 7.5 etc etc.

PS: you are welcome to contact me should you require any further detail.

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