Ultralase eye laser

loulou41

Thanks for all your good advice. I think personally myself at 66 yrs, hubby is too old for eye laser as there is no guarantee, he could be worst off, there is that chance. he has a history of cataracts in his family. He is the one who does the driving and carrying around in the house, we will be lost if he cannot drive. Personally myself, I am 59 yrs and my eyesight is -2+, I will give it a miss. However son is going ahead to have his done sometimes in October, he is very short sighted -8+. £3000+ is the usual price according to the treatment, the cheapest one is nearly £1000+ per eye. We choose Ultralase because of the lifetime guarantee. Thanks

daisyroots_2

I had this done 3 years ago at Moorfields, and it's the best thing I ever did. Originally I wanted laser treatment, but I was too short sighted, so this was suggested by the surgeon. In fact, it is a cataract op., except that they remove and replace the natural lens before it clouds with cataract - hence the name. The cataract op. is far older, better established and safer than laser treatment. Furthermore, my Ma had cataracts, and the surgeon said I had very early signs of it - so this is an op I'd have needed anyway.

You lose adaptability (in other words you cannot shift focus from far to near) so you need reading glasses. But most people over 45 need them anyway. But he made my left eye slightly more near sighted, and my left longer sighted, and I find that really useful. With his short sight, this might be a better - and more lasting - operation for your son, and no more expensive. Please ask him to examine this option before going ahead.

If your opthalmic consultant reckons your husband has got early cataract, he could even get this on the NHS. I was too impatient and went private, it cost £3k. Please feel free to ask me any questions about it. My sister in law was so impressed, she had it done earlier this year and is delighted.

margaretclare

Daisyroots, did this 'clear lens extraction' actually improve your sight i.e. make you less short-sighted?

As I wrote above, I'm due to have cataract surgery week after next. I've been very very impressed with DH's results - he had cataract surgery in April and May, only 7 weeks from first eye to second, and he now doesn't need glasses at all after having worn them for 60 years! He does need reading glasses but only the weakest prescription. I'm hoping for a similar result, but I'm much more short-sighted than he ever was.

About cataract surgery - it's no longer necessary to wait 'until it ripens' which used to be the case. At our local opthalmology department they're doing 15-20 cataracts a day, 5 days a week. All you have to do is to convince the surgeon that it is impacting on your lifestyle. I managed to convince him that I was having difficulty seeing figures, graphs etc while doing GCSE Maths, and he took this on board even though I told him I was 71!

People use their eyes differently. In retirement, it depends what you do - if you watch birds a lot, read, use a computer etc, you use your eyes more than someone who spends their time listening to music. Or so it was explained to me. Whatever you do, if cataracts are affecting your normal activities, time to get something done.

Margaret

nedmundo

I'm sure that the likelyhood is that once the cataract extraction has been improved, you're short-sightedness will be significantly reduced , if not virtually correccted. The surgeons take measurements of the size of your eye, curvature of your cornea and current prescription, before feeding it into a program which calculates which implant lens you will need.

Having said that, there are variables which may effect your end result such as how much astigmatism (distortion) the inscisions cause and how your corneas heal. So, all being well you should get a good result, but I'm sure you will appreciate there are no guarantees. Let us know how you get on.

daisyroots_2

margaretclare wrote: »

Daisyroots, did this 'clear lens extraction' actually improve your sight i.e. make you less short-sighted?Margaret

Yes, I learned a lot about cataracts when I had the op. Apparently the "ripeness" myth was propagated as a way of rationing the number of ops done on the NHS! I also learned that the cataract is not a film over the eyeball, as I'd foolishly thought, but a gradual clouding of the lens.

Yes, I am no longer short sighted. The part of the eye which governs this, the lens, is shorter and thicker with us myopics, reducing the point of focus (would love to draw a diagram here) What the surgeon does, and it honestly does not hurt, is make a tiny incision at the edge of your iris and suck out the lens, which is a jellyish thing. Into the same aperture, he inserts another needle, which is a microscopic cylinder, and the new, perfect lens is rolled up inside this. He gently unfolds this, inside your eye, to replace the old, myopic lens - and now you have 20/20 vision.

So, regardless of how short-sighted you were, you will see as well as your husband, or anyone else who has had their cataracts "done". If you are offered the option of having one eye made slightly more near sighted, and the other 20/20, I'd recommend it. Means if you can't find your reading specs, you can read with the near sighted eye if the light is good and the print not too small.

As you will know from your DH's experience, you have to wear an eye sheild for a bit, and put drops in, but this is to prevent infection. Your vision is henceforth perfect, and it's a revelation!

I had my eyes done a week apart. Until then I'd been wearing contacts, but with increasing discomfort as eyes get drier with age. Having been short sighted my whole life, it made a lot of difference: being able to see perfectly as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning was a novelty I'm still not quite used to. Being able to swim underwater, not worrying about lens cleaner and fluid, not worrying about getting something in my eye (agony with contacts) and being able to buy reading specs over the counter. I started wearing eye make up again. I used to have glasses as well, and what with all the contact peripherals, I spent a couple of hundred pounds a year on my eyes. Now it all goes on eye shadow!

Interesting what you say about persuading opthalmologists to do it in the NHS, I hope what you say convinces others to try this route, rather than the laser surgery option, which is a far newer op., far less precise and which (I think) is not available on the NHS.

nedmundo

Whether you can get cataract surgery or clear lens extraction on the NHS is down to the Primary Care Trust in your area, which pays for the surgery. Unfortunately, it is usually out of the surgeons hands to decide - which means a postcode lottery.

margaretclare

nedmundo wrote: »

Whether you can get cataract surgery or clear lens extraction on the NHS is down to the Primary Care Trust in your area, which pays for the surgery. Unfortunately, it is usually out of the surgeon's hands to decide - which means a postcode lottery.

Nedmundo, this hasn't been the impression I received so far. I was actually referred directly from the optician's I'd been attending, and the only question she asked me was 'is it affecting what you do?' The answer was yes. I was given 3 choices of where to be referred to - the local hospital's opthalmology department, a local private specialist eye hospital, or the local BUPA hospital, all under the 'Choose and Book' scheme. We are also near enough to London, maybe I could have gone to Moorfields if I'd asked.

It was quite amusing when I went to the local hospital's opthalmology department (I was happy with this option because it's all been recently refurbished and I knew that my DH had had good experiences). The first person I saw was a nurse who asked me 'Do you know why you're here?' I was surprised, and said 'Well, I darned well hope so!' She explained that in her experience there, the vast majority of older people she sees have no clue as to why they've been asked to go there! They say things like 'I went to the optician's to get my glasses changed and I got an appointment through the post, to come here. The optician didn't tell me...' I said 'Well, I would have asked! I wouldn't just turn up to an appointment not knowing what it was for'. I actually found that quite hard to believe, but she was convinced of it.

When I got to see the surgeon, he immediately started talking about the risks: 'It's a serious operation, there are risks, it's not just a whim'. This got my dander up. I explained that it was affecting the things I do, and the conversation went:

Me: 'I've found it more difficult since I've been doing GCSE Maths, seeing the figures, reading graphs etc...'

Him: 'How old are you?'

Me: '71'.

Him: 'Why are you doing all this, why do you need to see figures?'

Me: 'Have you not seen those TV ads, the little gremlins coming along saying "oh you're no good at that, you can't do sums"?'

Him: 'So it's just to prove that you can'.

Me: 'Is there any better reason?'

He laughed then and said 'OK, I'll put you on the waiting list, it will be about 3 months'.

In fact it isn't 3 months, it's 2, because I accepted a cancellation. It's going to be a week on Tuesday, just after we come back from the English Democrats Party conference at Leicester next weekend.

I'm really looking forward to doing without glasses! I've never been good at eye make-up because I couldn't see well enough. My DH says it has taken some getting used to because he had so many years of reaching for his specs the first thing he did in the mornings, it was so automatic, like a reflex.

Warned by him, I've bought a pair of optically-correct non-prescription sun-glasses, because he says that one thing you notice more is the glare, how bright everything is, and he wears his even in the garden. We didn't know about this beforehand, we had to go and get them within days of the first eye being done, so he advised me to get them in advance.

Margaret

pboae

A friend of mine was rejected by Optimax as being too old at 55. I don't know exactly what sort of surgery it was he wanted as they do several different sorts.

nedmundo

margaretclare wrote: »

Nedmundo, this hasn't been the impression I received so far. I was actually referred directly from the optician's I'd been attending, and the only question she asked me was 'is it affecting what you do?' The answer was yes. I was given 3 choices of where to be referred to - the local hospital's opthalmology department, a local private specialist eye hospital, or the local BUPA hospital, all under the 'Choose and Book' scheme. We are also near enough to London, maybe I could have gone to Moorfields if I'd asked.

It was quite amusing when I went to the local hospital's opthalmology department (I was happy with this option because it's all been recently refurbished and I knew that my DH had had good experiences). The first person I saw was a nurse who asked me 'Do you know why you're here?' I was surprised, and said 'Well, I darned well hope so!' She explained that in her experience there, the vast majority of older people she sees have no clue as to why they've been asked to go there! They say things like 'I went to the optician's to get my glasses changed and I got an appointment through the post, to come here. The optician didn't tell me...' I said 'Well, I would have asked! I wouldn't just turn up to an appointment not knowing what it was for'. I actually found that quite hard to believe, but she was convinced of it.

When I got to see the surgeon, he immediately started talking about the risks: 'It's a serious operation, there are risks, it's not just a whim'. This got my dander up. I explained that it was affecting the things I do, and the conversation went:

Me: 'I've found it more difficult since I've been doing GCSE Maths, seeing the figures, reading graphs etc...'

Him: 'How old are you?'

Me: '71'.

Him: 'Why are you doing all this, why do you need to see figures?'

Me: 'Have you not seen those TV ads, the little gremlins coming along saying "oh you're no good at that, you can't do sums"?'

Him: 'So it's just to prove that you can'.

Me: 'Is there any better reason?'

He laughed then and said 'OK, I'll put you on the waiting list, it will be about 3 months'.

In fact it isn't 3 months, it's 2, because I accepted a cancellation. It's going to be a week on Tuesday, just after we come back from the English Democrats Party conference at Leicester next weekend.

I'm really looking forward to doing without glasses! I've never been good at eye make-up because I couldn't see well enough. My DH says it has taken some getting used to because he had so many years of reaching for his specs the first thing he did in the mornings, it was so automatic, like a reflex.

Warned by him, I've bought a pair of optically-correct non-prescription sun-glasses, because he says that one thing you notice more is the glare, how bright everything is, and he wears his even in the garden. We didn't know about this beforehand, we had to go and get them within days of the first eye being done, so he advised me to get them in advance.

Margaret

Like I said, it's a post-code lottery. The PCT where you live is obviously relatively flush compared to others. In one county I work in, they will only fund cataract surgery when vision deteriorates to 50% of the level required to drive - which means that there are an awful lot of drivers on the road with substandard and illegal vision. They will waive it though, if someone lives by themself or has hearing difficulties!

Another county will operate when one eye drops below the driving standard, which is a bit more reasonable.

Hope all goes well for you - I'm sure it will.

Ned.

margaretclare

nedmundo wrote: »

Like I said, it's a post-code lottery. The PCT where you live is obviously relatively flush compared to others. In one county I work in, they will only fund cataract surgery when vision deteriorates to 50% of the level required to drive - which means that there are an awful lot of drivers on the road with substandard and illegal vision. They will waive it though, if someone lives by themself or has hearing difficulties!

Another county will operate when one eye drops below the driving standard, which is a bit more reasonable.

Hope all goes well for you - I'm sure it will.

Ned.

Good heavens. Well, I think we're quite fortunate here in having the options not only of the NHS opthalmology department of the local (university) hospital but a private eye hospital and the BUPA hospital as well as being only 40 miles out of London.

I did tell them that it affected my driving, but no one ever asked to quantify how much. If it affected me that much I wouldn't drive at all - we've recently had a tragic case here, our church minister's niece, who was killed on a pelican crossing in broad daylight by a man who apparently has defective eyesight but his GP and others have colluded in preventing him from standing trial for causing death by dangerous driving. This is still rumbling on 18 months later, I mustn't give any more detail about it - but in all conscience, I wouldn't drive if it was that bad.

Obviously, it affects everything one does, but as it was explained to me, some people more than others - if you don't drive, read, watch birds or do Maths, you can get away with it for longer. It just so happens that I do do all of those things, and they're part of my lifestyle - no one has the right to tell me I don't need to do them because of my age.

Margaret