Today is just my consultation, basically seeing that I’m eligible for laser eye surgery and then also which type will actually be suitable for me as well.

 

I’m a little nervous, but I’ve kind of looked through everything and I’ve had great chats with Dr. Cummings.

 

So I think it’ll be fine.

 

For surfing, I wanted to get rid of contact lenses.

I can’t wear them in the

water.

It means that when I’m in the water, I guess a little bit in danger almost because  I can’t really see the waves coming in.

 

And then I can’t see other surfers in the water as well.

 

So it’s kind of good to be able to recognize people.

 

The laser procedures we do routinely at the clinic are LASIK and surface ablations or surface treatments.

 

And the surface treatments include treatments like PRK or LASIK or streamline Trans Epithelial PRK.

 

Both procedures, LASIK and surface treatments give very good  outcomes.

 

You’ll make the decision on which one is best suited to on the data consultation.

 

This laser here is called XMA laser.

 

The XMA laser is the laser that does the correction.

 

It does the treatment, whether you’re long sighted or short sighted or astigmatic. It does the correction.

 

This laser every here is called the Femtosecond laser and this laser makes the little flap.

 

And in the past, we used to do this with a device called a Keratome.

 

Today, it’s done with this Femtosecond laser that uses air bubbles to make the little flap.

 

So it’s a very, very gentle procedure.

 

The way they differ is in their recovery, the outcomes are the same, but the recovery with a flap, because the surface is intact, is very very quick.

 

Typically, by the next morning you’re sing very very well.

 

And within days it feels like you’ve always seen naturally.

 

And with PRK or the surface treatments, the skin is removed and just like your knee that you might have grazed, that skin takes a little while to grow back.

 

And once the skin’s grown back, the eyes comfortable. And then as time goes on and the cells start remodeling, so the vision starts improving.

 

So the main difference there is the recovery time and the time it takes before you are seeing as well as you’d hoped for.

 

So I’ve just had the surgery, I couldn’t believe how quick it was and I actually chose not to take any kind of anything to calm me down before I guess I was already quite at ease just by talking to Dr. Cummings and the nurses.

 

So, I think that was kind of nice then to be fully, fully aware of what was going on all the time.

 

And they did give me a little stress ball, so if I got a little bit nervous, I could squeeze that.

So that was good.

I think the actual time of the laser being on was six seconds.

 

I think before I was worried that if I move my eyes around and stuff and they reassured me anyway, that they everything is under control the whole time.

 

So there’s just no reason to be worried.

 

So now the rest of the day, we’ll be eating snacks and probably listening to audio books because I am meant to sleep for a little while and rest. Just to give the eyes a bit of a break.

 

I am here in the Wellington Eye Clinic for my consultation, to kind of checking how my eyes are doing and just checking in to see their health and how I’m getting on.

 

It’s been so good.

 

My eyes are great. They’ve healed really quickly as well. I’m noticing massive difference kind of mostly for driving, especially at night time. That’s a huge one as well. So that’s really cool.

 

It’s made a massive difference. Surfing.

 

I can see the other people in the water.

 

I can see the view  for the first time. Like I used to, just focus on the waves and now it’s like those cliffs are really nice.

 

I got a very good result. I had kind of followed Dr. Cummings guidelines before about like supplements and kind of warm compresses and stuff like that.

 

And I think he gives different prescriptions to different people and that meant that I healed quickly.

 

I’m so happy I came to the Wellington Clinic. It was brilliant.