James

I attended Vision Care Clinic last week for Implantable Contact Lens. I have an astigmatism in both eyes, and a prescription of around -2.5/-3.5. Being mid 40s, I've also just started to struggle reading small text if I have my distance lenses in, especially in poor light.
After almost 30 years of wearing contact lens, I wanted freedom from the daily hassle and infection risk, especially for an upcoming trip involving a lot of swimming, scuba, surfing.

From the outset, the entire team was incredibly warm, welcoming, and more importantly - I had a real feeling of trust and confidence in their abilities, especially the surgeon, Kieran Darcy. The team advised me to consider Monovision – having one eye under corrected to allow for reading correction as well as distance correction. I was able to trial this by using an under-corrected contact lens in my non-dominant eye, before surgery. It turned out to be the perfect solution, it’s amazing the way that the brain uses the two different images and effectively edits out the blurry data to give fantastic vision for both near and far.

I was told that the procedure, under anaesthetic drops, would be painless - and this was 100% accurate. After the drops have taken effect, you are asked to look straight ahead, with the bright surgery lights in front of you. Kieran gave indications of the process as he worked, and how much of the process was left, which was beneficial to me. While the incision is being made and the lens is being inserted and orientated, I basically could see just a blurry mix of bright colours and shapes which was incredibly strange, but in no way painful. There is also a brief period of blackness, then the colours came back.

I think I was told I'd be in surgery for around 20 minutes, but the actual procedure must have been a fraction of that. After surgery, you can see immediately, although not perfectly (still far better than without glasses pre-op, in my case). By the time I'd had tea and a sandwich back on the ward, I could see really well. By the morning, my vision (near and far) was perfect!

I could not be happier with the outcome, or the team that I chose for the operation. Thank you all.