Laser Eye Surgery

Niamho!

my poor mammy is goin into Hospital today, she had laser surgery 3 weeks ago and her left eye is in bits. looks so sore. she couldent even tell me what she was getting done today she said its that yucky.... :eek:

faceman

baztard wrote:

So at the moment I have 20/20 vision in both eyes, but with double vision in both also. I'm confident I'll make a full recovery as such in the end, but it will have been afther taking the long route around. I'm not going to name the doc or the hospital involved so please dont ask, as this is not a name and shame, just an unusual case.

sorry to hear that. I hope everything works out.
Unfortunately its cases like this that have put me off. When something goes wrong its cant always be fixed.

The risk is small, but its still there.

juke

Had lasIk doen 2 weeks ago at the Wellington. Service was faultless, especially after care.

I chose them for several reasons - and price was not on the list (tho I did get 15% as member of vhi). I felt that when it came to my eyes that price just wasn't an issue - tho I understand it could be and is for some. The idea of having it done in the North for eg., to avail of better rates, just wasn't a factor, as in the event something went wrong afterwards, I wanted to be within easy reach. As it was, I had a compulsory check-up the following day and I requested a check up one week later and got it - if i'd needed to travel to the North again, that wouldn't have been easy. Also, they put in "bandage" contact lenses to help the flaps heal - and I wouldn't have been confident remvoing them myself the following day.

My eyes are quiet dry (but I fit the profile as one likely to suffer from dry eye). The vision has improved dramatically to pre-op. (I was -5), but is still blurred in the distance - I'm assured that this will improve.
Biggest problem is being back at work - the air con is making the dry eye worse, and now they are v. bloodshot. I look like I've been crying for a week.
I also have night vision issues with halo effect etc.,

but at this stage, I wouldn't go back.

Tuesday_Girl

I had Lasik surgery in January, I was -9 before and at the last check up last week I was at -1 so I don't have 20-20 vision. One option is to have another operation, actually 2 cos they would do one eye at a time but they would use Lazek which has a longer recovery time and also my cornea is extremely thin now and that also adds some risk.

So I am going to get glasses which I will use for driving, going to the cinema, etc. Laser surgery can give you 20-20 vision or it can dramatically reduce your dependence on glasses. For me it was the latter and even though I will still wear glasses it will be less than 5% of the time and I'm happy with that, it greatly improves my quality of life plus I don't want to subject my eyes to more surgery.

maggielynchm

Hi
have been reading these boards for a while, prior to having my surgery at Optilase last Friday. Have seen a dramatic difference in my vision even on the Saturday morning check up, but just wondering from anyone who's had it done with the story was with glare from lights, tvs etc, and how long people have found this lasts for, at the moment i feel like it takes away from my vision. I've been wearing sunglasses since friday pretty much constant.

Niamho!

Anyone, or anyone know of someone who ever got their Eyes done by a Doctor Smith based in Kimmage?? ....just on the off chance...

CombatCow

*maggielynchm

Hay there, glad it went well for you, i didnt watch any tv and tryd to keep away from bright lights for at least a week after my surgery just to let my eyes settle down rather than the light being discomforting, for me anyway i wore sunglasses for about 2 weeks afterwards when outside.


CC

maggielynchm

thanks cc, how long did it take for everything to sort of settle down

CombatCow

I had/have 20/20 vision after my 2 week check up, but eyeryone eye's heal at a differant rate so they say.I Couldent be happier

Good luck

CC

I've been looking at laser eye surgery for years. But the thing that's put me off is that I'm hoping to become a train driver in the long term. Some of the UK operators will not take on people who've had laser, due to it being unchartered territory. Don't know what Iarnród Éireann's policy is on it but I'm not taking the chance.

keefg

Karsini wrote:

I've been looking at laser eye surgery for years. But the thing that's put me off is that I'm hoping to become a train driver in the long term. Some of the UK operators will not take on people who've had laser, due to it being unchartered territory. Don't know what Iarnród Éireann's policy is on it but I'm not taking the chance.

What difference will this make to a future job prospect?

Don't tell them anything, go for the medical and pass the eye exam with flying colours.

If you do a bit of research you will see that the US military will accept candidates that have had laser surgury as long as it is the top end wavelength process.

If it's good enough for the marines it should be good enough for Irish Rail.

Edit: Just thought, unless you already work for Irish Rail and they know you wear glasses? If so, I would contact your HR dept and enquire what there stance is in this.

If you want to it done then I would suggest you go for it. I got my eyes done in May and it is fantastic, really made a difference to my life. Anyone I have spoken to (and I agree) wish they had it done years before they did.

squire1

Karsini wrote:

Some of the UK operators will not take on people who've had laser, due to it being unchartered territory.

Can you link to a source for this as I find it absolutely amazing in this day and age. I know of no airline that would preclude a pilot for this reason so I am just interested to see the logic that these UK train operators are using to justify such a policy.

squire1

squire1 wrote:

Can you link to a source for this as I find it absolutely amazing in this day and age. I know of no airline that would preclude a pilot for this reason so I am just interested to see the logic that these UK train operators are using to justify such a policy.

http://www.connexions-direct.com/jobs4u/index.cfm?pid=64&catalogueContentID=680&render=detailedArticle

Check the "Skills and personal qualities" section on that page.

That isn't where I read it initially but I seem to recall issues with vision at night being part of the reason.

Banahan

My friend has perfect eyesight after getting it done.

I wonder can you go and ask for 20/10 vision ?

maggielynchm

Just an update on my lasik, when back for my 1 week checkup yesterday evening, was told i have 20/20 in my right eye, but 20/30 in my left. Still have the glare of any lights and watching TV is hell as well as this computer screen. I feel my vision has siipped a bit this morning as things are not as clear as they were in the last few days, road signs i could see last Saturday after surgery I couldn't see this morning, a bit freaked about that, have appointment in 3 weeks, so seriously hoping things will improve dramatically by then, as i'm beginning to worry now.

kaizersoze1980

Has anyone had lasek done in the Mater Private hospital?

Im booked in for next friday with professor o keefe, who is supposedly the best surgeon in europe at laser surgery, so thats reassured me a bit.

Do you have to wear the contact lenses they give you during the day as well as night?

How many days would you leave between surgery and going back to using a pc as this is my job at the minute?


thanks

kizzyr

kaizersoze1980 wrote: »

Has anyone had lasek done in the Mater Private hospital?

Im booked in for next friday with professor o keefe, who is supposedly the best surgeon in europe at laser surgery, so thats reassured me a bit.

Do you have to wear the contact lenses they give you during the day as well as night?

How many days would you leave between surgery and going back to using a pc as this is my job at the minute?


thanks

I had mine done my Prof O'Keefe in August of last year and can't speak highly enough about him, the rest of the staff and best of all the results.
After the procedure is finished they put the lens into your eye before you get off the table and the eye is covered with a large clear plastic disc to protect your eye and stop you touching it. You leave that on until the next day. I thought it would be weird but to be honest after the valium they give you for the procedure, your painkillers and the sleeping tablet they give you to take that night you just conk out and don't notice it at all.
I had my first eye done on a Wednesday afternoon and didn't go back to work (PC based, lots of reading) until the following Tuesday (it was over a bank holiday weekend). I took the same amount of time for the second eye too. I have to drive to work via the M50 and in case anything happened thought it best to wait until my eyes were perfect.
Best of luck with it, you'll be so happy with yourself once its all over. Feel free to ask me any more questions if you want.

Sherifu

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1012 \o/





Pimped twice in a week. The_Minister owes me some tea

kaizersoze1980

kizzyr wrote: »

I had mine done my Prof O'Keefe in August of last year and can't speak highly enough about him, the rest of the staff and best of all the results.
After the procedure is finished they put the lens into your eye before you get off the table and the eye is covered with a large clear plastic disc to protect your eye and stop you touching it. You leave that on until the next day. I thought it would be weird but to be honest after the valium they give you for the procedure, your painkillers and the sleeping tablet they give you to take that night you just conk out and don't notice it at all.
I had my first eye done on a Wednesday afternoon and didn't go back to work (PC based, lots of reading) until the following Tuesday (it was over a bank holiday weekend). I took the same amount of time for the second eye too. I have to drive to work via the M50 and in case anything happened thought it best to wait until my eyes were perfect.
Best of luck with it, you'll be so happy with yourself once its all over. Feel free to ask me any more questions if you want.

thanks! sounds good. Did you have lasek or lasik?
Did you experience any pain/discomfort during it, and how long did it take for your vision to be fully restored. Also, have you had any problems at night time with glare or anything ?

kaizersoze1980

Sherifu wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1012 \o/





Pimped twice in a week. The_Minister owes me some tea

meh...no one reads that forum from what i can see. i posted in it and got no response before so this is a better place, ive had one good response already

kizzyr

kaizersoze1980 wrote: »

thanks! sounds good. Did you have lasek or lasik?
Did you experience any pain/discomfort during it, and how long did it take for your vision to be fully restored. Also, have you had any problems at night time with glare or anything ?

I had the lasek, my eyes had bad astigmatisms and my vision was really poor on top of that.
During the procedure itself you feel nothing, not a single thing. Prof O'Keefe is very reassuring during the op, and tells you everything he is going to do just as he starts and it is all over and done with very quickly really. During the op itself the oddest thing is when they rinse your eye out before they start with the laser, the water gathers in your ear and is really cold.
After the op they get you to wait around for about 20 minutes or so and this is so they can check your eye over again before they let you go home. At this stage I began to feel some discomfort but they have these wonderful pain relief drops that they put into your eye and they work so quickly its great.
You'll get a bag of goodies to bring home with you, antibiotic drops, the pain relief drops, water drops (you'll need to use this as your eye does feel dry afterward and the numbing/pain relief drops dry the eye out further), painkillers and best of all your sleeping tablets. By the time I was going to bed that first night I did feel sore but once I took the sleeping pill I was out for the count and the next morning my eye felt great.
The weirdest thing of all for me was the time between having the first and second eye done. On the way home after the first op, even with some discomfort, and the big plastic thing stuck over my eye I could still see better out of the operated on eye than out of the one that hadn't been touched. It was (sappy and all as it sounds) magical and certainly made any discomfort I had well worth it.
I've had absolutely no problems at all with nighttime glare or anything. The whole procedure was 100% successful for me. My sister had her eyes treated in the Mater Private by Prof O' Keefe too and had the same experience and feelings as me.

kaizersoze1980

kizzyr wrote: »

I had the lasek, my eyes had bad astigmatisms and my vision was really poor on top of that.
During the procedure itself you feel nothing, not a single thing. Prof O'Keefe is very reassuring during the op, and tells you everything he is going to do just as he starts and it is all over and done with very quickly really. During the op itself the oddest thing is when they rinse your eye out before they start with the laser, the water gathers in your ear and is really cold.
After the op they get you to wait around for about 20 minutes or so and this is so they can check your eye over again before they let you go home. At this stage I began to feel some discomfort but they have these wonderful pain relief drops that they put into your eye and they work so quickly its great.
You'll get a bag of goodies to bring home with you, antibiotic drops, the pain relief drops, water drops (you'll need to use this as your eye does feel dry afterward and the numbing/pain relief drops dry the eye out further), painkillers and best of all your sleeping tablets. By the time I was going to bed that first night I did feel sore but once I took the sleeping pill I was out for the count and the next morning my eye felt great.
The weirdest thing of all for me was the time between having the first and second eye done. On the way home after the first op, even with some discomfort, and the big plastic thing stuck over my eye I could still see better out of the operated on eye than out of the one that hadn't been touched. It was (sappy and all as it sounds) magical and certainly made any discomfort I had well worth it.
I've had absolutely no problems at all with nighttime glare or anything. The whole procedure was 100% successful for me. My sister had her eyes treated in the Mater Private by Prof O' Keefe too and had the same experience and feelings as me.

thanks for all of the information, really put me at ease !
I was looking at the wellington clinic, but have heard great things about prof. o keefe so I went for the mater.

Do you know do they do wavefront or do they not do that in the mater, they never mentioned in during the consultation...

Any problems with night vision at all?

I am thinking of only getting 1 eye done, im very happy with my other one, its almost perfect so I think ill get the one that really needs it done and see how I go from there.

kizzyr

kaizersoze1980 wrote: »

thanks for all of the information, really put me at ease !
I was looking at the wellington clinic, but have heard great things about prof. o keefe so I went for the mater.

Do you know do they do wavefront or do they not do that in the mater, they never mentioned in during the consultation...

Any problems with night vision at all?

I am thinking of only getting 1 eye done, im very happy with my other one, its almost perfect so I think ill get the one that really needs it done and see how I go from there.

Wavefront.........really can't answer that for you sorry:)
I've had zero problems with my night vision. In fact I was anticipating it so much that at one of my check ups I asked them was this going to happen, I hadn't noticed anything yet and wanted to be ready for it:o They said that the procedure I had actually resulted in far fewer night vision problems than some other procedures. I'm 10 months on from the operation now and can safely say I have no night vision problems whatsoever.
Both of my eyes were so bad that there was no earthly way I could have one done and not the other (I was a -7.5 in the right eye and -5.25 in the left eye!) so getting both done was a given. I do know one girl whose sight wasn't that bad and she only had one eye done. She has been very happy with her sight since.
I had thought about getting the procedure done elsewhere too as Prof O'Keefe and the Mater Private end up costing a fair whack. I work between two major Dublin hospitals so asked a few of the doctors I work with what their feelings re: laser surgery for eyes were. Each one of them said that if I was going to get it done they would wholeheartedly recommend Prof O'Keefe over and above anyone else, that he was the go to guy. Those recommendation together with his own experience and reputation made my decision for me. It is your eye sight you're messing around with after all and you can claim some of it back on your tax in January;)

Sherifu

kaizersoze1980 wrote: »

meh...no one reads that forum from what i can see. i posted in it and got no response before so this is a better place, ive had one good response already

That's not a valid excuse tbh, there are loads of laser eye threads there.

kaizersoze1980

Sherifu wrote: »

That's not a valid excuse tbh, there are loads of laser eye threads there.

Yeah well, what are you going to do, is it offending you that much?

Im just looking for information

kaizersoze1980

kizzyr wrote: »

Wavefront.........really can't answer that for you sorry:)
I've had zero problems with my night vision. In fact I was anticipating it so much that at one of my check ups I asked them was this going to happen, I hadn't noticed anything yet and wanted to be ready for it:o They said that the procedure I had actually resulted in far fewer night vision problems than some other procedures. I'm 10 months on from the operation now and can safely say I have no night vision problems whatsoever.
Both of my eyes were so bad that there was no earthly way I could have one done and not the other (I was a -7.5 in the right eye and -5.25 in the left eye!) so getting both done was a given. I do know one girl whose sight wasn't that bad and she only had one eye done. She has been very happy with her sight since.
I had thought about getting the procedure done elsewhere too as Prof O'Keefe and the Mater Private end up costing a fair whack. I work between two major Dublin hospitals so asked a few of the doctors I work with what their feelings re: laser surgery for eyes were. Each one of them said that if I was going to get it done they would wholeheartedly recommend Prof O'Keefe over and above anyone else, that he was the go to guy. Those recommendation together with his own experience and reputation made my decision for me. It is your eye sight you're messing around with after all and you can claim some of it back on your tax in January;)

thanks for all your information, very helpful

Susannahmia

Is it possible to be sedated or even drugged up with Valium during this op? I think I would have a freak out other wise!:o

kizzyr

kaizersoze1980 wrote: »

thanks for all your information, very helpful

No problem, glad to help. You really will be fine after it, as I said the first evening if the hardest part, but isn't that hard really. The fact that your vision has improved almost instantly really makes you feel it all worthwhile and the next day you're flying.
All the best, let me know how you get on when its over and done with:)

kizzyr

Susannahmia wrote: »

Is it possible to be sedated or even drugged up with Valium during this op? I think I would have a freak out other wise!:o

The valium does sedate you to a certain extent. As I said earlier my sister got her eyes done and if she could manage it anyone could. She used to freak out getting her eyes tested and never managed to wear mascara because she hated things near her eyes that much.
If you're very very nervous they'll increase the dosage of valium but can only go so far with it. This is because you need to be able to focus your eye during the op when they tell you, especially when the green and red lights start.
The operation itself is very short, ten minutes or less from the time you get onto the bed to when you're finished. They're well used to people being nervous and a nurse stays with you at your side if you want, they'll even hold you hand. THe Prof himself, is very calm, relaxed and really on top of his game. This coupled with the soft focus effect of the valium and ..........well the world seems like a great place:D

Gibbins123

Ok so its not painful, but what is it like seeing the blade or whatever coming straight toward your eye? Is it not really scary? And I know you can't move as your eyelid is held open, but what if you look up/down/sideways instead of straight ahead.... can't it cut the wrong part of your eye?

thanks in advance!