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Bruce
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![[*]](./images/oxygen/default_icon.gif) posted on 2-11-2005 at 09:39 PM |
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Ultralase Vs the others
I'm sure everyone asks this, but I can't see any direct comparison.
Is there anywhere that gives a comparison between providers.
Optimax seem to say they are the "leading" supplier. Ultralase also say they are the "leading" provider. Of course everyone has to
say something good about themselves, as that's what sales/marketing is all about.
Is Optimax the biggest, but perhaps not the best. Are they focused on quantity instead of quality.
Is Ultralase charging for a "Rolls Royce" product/service. And do they deliver that quality, compared with others.
How do they all compare?
I'm always keen to get good value, but I do prefer a quality product. And when it's your eyes, you can't be too careful.
Optimax charge for a "doctor's consultation". Is this in any way a better consultation than what Ultralase provide?
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Ed_Zep
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| posted on 3-11-2005 at 12:38 AM |
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http://www.lasik-eyes.co.uk - if you click on clinics you get reviews of each one.
HTH.
Ed. 
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Gezi
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| posted on 3-11-2005 at 01:48 PM |
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In theory I would prefer to see the surgeon at the consultation. Reading some posts here, I note that some Ultralase clients have had the surgeon
change the type of treatment immediately prior to it being done. While this was no doubt a wise decision by the surgeon, I do feel that patients need
time to research the specific surgery they are to have, well before having it done.
FWIW, I have had consultations with Optimax and Optical Express, but have not yet been for one with Ultralase. Interestingly, OE claimed only one eye
was suitable for treatment (so were not prepared to treat me at all), whereas with Optimax both were suitable.
The non-surgeon at OE was quite knowledgable and well trained but I think didn't have the expertise necessary to accurately evaluate if my rather
borderline prescription was treatable or not.
The surgeon at Optimax didn't ask some of the questions I'd expected (e.g. didn't ask if I drive or what kind of work I do). He
explained the side-effects that were likely for me and what my visual acuity was likely to be afterwards. However, when talking about other options,
he didn't mention Intralase, Wavefront, etc., he was only prepared to list the treatment that Optimax can provide with their lasers. While
some may think that's fair enough, I do think a competent surgeon should list all options available to a patient.
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dtalbot
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| posted on 24-11-2005 at 08:23 PM |
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If I have it right you can have your consultation with the surgeon likley to treat you with Ultralase, you just have to ask for it. I didn't
bother and found the staff at Ultralase to be thoroughly professional and knowledgable.
Differnet clinics will have different equipment, staff and experience so may well be correct in giving you a different view on treatability by
them.
Maybe the Optimax surgeon was only confident in his skill to adive you on the proceedures he has experienced, a sensible attitude in my view.
Cheers
David
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Leon
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| posted on 24-11-2005 at 10:40 PM |
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Hi Bruce,
I had my eyes treated with Ultralase a week ago and therefore I can only speak about them with first hand knowledge.
Laser surgery is a very safe procedure when done by the right people and with the best equipment. An initial look at the web and various news articles
may give a different impression. There are so many negative articles about laser surgery on the web that prior to my operation I had to force myself
not to look. This was not to deprive myself of information, but to make sure I only looked at what was relevant.
You see, all laser surgery is NOT the same. Many places offer cheap surgery but at what real price? Did you know that Ultralase use a card for the
laser that contains all your personal data? I was informed that the card alone costs £400. Now add to that, the cost of the staff, the surgeon, the
actual laser, the drops, aftercare etc and when I hear that some places charge £400 buy one get one free, I know something is amiss. Somewhere down
the chain they are compromising on quality.
Professionally Ultralase do an extremely thorough job of examining you, checking your suitability and explaining EVERYTHING to you. They go over the
risks time and time again, but they put them in context. Contact lenses are far more dangerous for example.
Ultralase use the very latest equipment and lasers. This costs alot of money but gets you the very best treatment, totally personalised and with a
laser that reacts to eye movements faster than your brain receives signals from your eye.
Ultralase employ the very best surgeons. Most importantly, they are so far the only company to have had their results INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED.
Therefore their risks and results are based on quantifiable and verifiable statistics that are made very clear. This helps you know that you arent the
subject of a sales pitch.
Yes Ultralase seems expensive, but you have to ask yourself what you are getting. Most people would be more than happy to spend over £3000 on a car.
Your eyes are the most precious thing in the world. In that context, it will be one of the cheapest major things you will ever buy.
Finally Ultralase show you exactly where that money goes, by the standards of its equipment, its service, and quality of surgeons.
I would not have trusted anyone else.
Leon
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JerryO
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| posted on 26-11-2005 at 03:36 PM |
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| Quote: | Originally posted by LeonUltralase... show you exactly where that money goes, by the standards of its equipment, its
service, and quality of surgeons.
I would not have trusted anyone else. |
Ditto that 
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boomdocker
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| posted on 27-11-2005 at 10:51 AM |
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Well put Leon.
I had so many people at work tell me afterwards that I could have had this surgery cheaper elsewhere. For me it was never about the money it was for
the reasons you stated above, the trust, quality and results.
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Leon
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| posted on 27-11-2005 at 06:26 PM |
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Hi Boomdocker,
I totally agree. Money was the least important factor in me considering where to have treatment - at least in the conventional cheaper the better
sense.
I tend to believe in the idea that if something is being offered at vastly different prices, the more expensive ones must cost more for a reason. The
reason has to be investigated as nothing should be taken on blind faith, but if it was really as simple as Optical express offers exactly the same
treatment for £395 per eye, as Ultralase do for £1395 per eye, then Ultralase would clearly have gone broke years ago.
Through research, it becomes clear that Ultralase are more than happy to explain where your money is going. When I was told that even the card they
put into the machine which is individual for each patient costs almost £400 alone it becomes very easy to see why.
Lets compare it to something like tvs. You can buy a portable run of the mill tv for about £40. It will provide a picture, sound and channels.
Basically it will get the job done. Or you can buy a Plasma or LCD tv for a thousand pounds plus. These will also provide you with the essentials, so
some could claim they are the same thing, but the quality is vastly better.
For something like a tv I am happy to settle for a lower quality. For something like my eyes, only the best will do.
Leon
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insx
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| posted on 28-11-2005 at 01:27 PM |
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Would like to echo the recommendation to look at http://www.lasik-eyes.co.uk.
I'm sure Ultralase is a great provider but sometimes you get the impression that if you go anywhere else you will be taking a risk. (The others
don't spend £400 on a memory card, you know).
Read the reviews.
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Leon
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| posted on 29-11-2005 at 11:44 AM |
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Hi insx,
Short of perhaps Moorfields eye hospital, I honestly felt that going anywhere else WAS taking a risk. I researched where to go thoroughly and no one
else came close to Ultra lase. This was only confirmed by direct experience of dealing with them.
I will happily echo these sentiments on lasik eyes. In fact I have already been asked to do just that.
Its true the others dont spend £400 on a memory card. This is one of the main reasons I didnt like the others. That memory card contains every detail
of your eye, which is more individual than a fingerprint. As such, it can even tell the difference between your right and left eyes. Ultralase is one
of the only providers to offer wavefront and this card ensures the treatment is entirely geared to your eyes, treating your own personal abberations.
By doing this, many of the highly profiled side effects of surgery such as halos, are either made no worse, or cured.
The card ensures a personalised treatment rather than a one size fits all brand.
Leon
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insx
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| posted on 29-11-2005 at 12:23 PM |
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I agree that the card/iris recognition is a nice safety feature, but I was willing to trust the 3 people in the surgery room to ensure that they were
treating the correct eye of the correct person. In every other respect, I am perfectly happy that my treatment was at least as good as I would have
received at Ultralase (and about £1,000 cheaper). At the end of the day, we will all rave about our provider if we received a good service and a good
result. That is what the review site is all about.
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Leon
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| posted on 29-11-2005 at 11:42 PM |
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Hi inxs,
The purpose of the card is not simply to recognise which eye and person is being treated. It is part of a procedure known as Wavefront.
With Wavefront, the goal is not just 20/20 vision, but better quality of vision. This is done by the machines building a full picture of your eye
which is then put onto the card.
The problems with your eye that are associated with refractive errors such as short sightedness are known as lower order aberrations. This is what
laser surgery generally works on resolving.
With Wavefront, work is also done to treat the higher order aberrations which are individual to each person. These include things like glare, halos,
starbursts etc.
Leon
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insx
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 12:01 AM |
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Hi there Leon
I'm well aware of customised wavefront treatment and I had it in one eye. You don't need a card for that.
Cheers
Tim
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Marianne44
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 10:06 AM |
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Am very interested to hear a comment that contact lenses are more dangerous than Lasik. Would you care to elaborate? This might help sway my
decision in favour of Lasik as I'm still undecided.
Thanks,
Marianne
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David Farrow
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 10:18 AM |
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Leon
They go over the risks time and time again, but they put them in context. Contact lenses are far more dangerous for example.
Leon |
I think Leon was referring to infection incidences, which are higher with contact lenses than with laser eye treatment. Can you elaborate Leon?
David Farrow, Laser Eye Forum Administrator
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JerryO
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 01:22 PM |
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| Quote: | | I am
perfectly happy that my treatment was at least as good as I would have received at Ultralase (and about £1,000 cheaper). At the end of the day, we
will all rave about our provider if we received a good service and a good result. |
I'm pleased that you're pleased with your treatment although you have mentioned your halos and I wonder if these would have been less
noticeable under a different treatment regime but at more cost.
Just a thought.
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insx
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 01:47 PM |
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Maybe, maybe not. I may have had them all along. They may even get better as it's not been 3 weeks yet. The interesting thing is that all my
"normal sighted" friends see halos to a certain extent. I can't say if I had them before because without my glasses, bright lights just
looked like massive firework bursts! Plenty of Ultralase patients seem to have them too and I worry that all treatment providers are playing down the
risk (not that they bother me that much).
[Edited on 30-11-2005 by insx]
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Leon
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 09:35 PM |
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Hi david and Marianne,
I was indeed referring to the risk of infection when I said contact lenses had a higher risk factor than laser surgery.
When deciding whether to have surgery I obviously wanted to know the risks, but it was not easy to find a way to put these into context. Ultralase are
very efficient at explaining all the possible risks and helping you make an informed decision. However, when the risks are given they are mostly to do
with numbers and percentages. For example, 1 in 1000 sounds like quite a low risk but when you compare it to the chances of winning the lottery, its a
significantly greater chance.
Therefore I kept looking for ways to put the risks into context. If I could find things that people do in day to day life without any worry that
actually have a similar risk then this would help me make my decision to go ahead with it.
This is how the contact lens example came about. I was asking one of the ultralase opticians to assist me putting the risks into context with other
things and she informed me that contact lenses have a higher rate of infection, and people have gone blind from something going wrong with wearing
contact lenses.
To my knowledge no one has ever gone blind as a result of laser surgery.
I did further research and found risks associated with many "regular" operations that many people dont think twice about, were HIGHER than
with laser surgery.
All of this helped me make a more informed decision and I am thankful as its the best thing I ever did.
Leon
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Leon
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 09:44 PM |
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Hi insx,
I agree halos and starbursts are a bit of an enigma to me. Prior to my consultation I didnt know I ever had glare halos etc until it was explained to
me what they were. I was also told that due to my pupil size I experience higher than average halos and glare, although when I talk to normal sighted
people there seems no difference in what they see.
Nevertheless, basic laser treatment has always posed the risk of making glare, halos and starbursts worse. Some people find the effects of these
incapacitating, especially at night.
For the first few days after I had wavefront I noticed what I thought was a slight increase in glare and halos. Nothing major, but an increase
nonetheless. This caused me slight disappointment as I was hoping wavefront would improve my overall quality of vision.
I then read it can take up to 6 months for the halos and starbursts to settle down fully (therefore if yours havent settled in 3 weeks there is no
cause for concern).
Its been just 2 weeks and tonight I went out and my vision has improved alot. I still see some glare, but my night vision is more crisp than I can
ever remember it. I know I harp on about wavefront but this was one of the possible benefits of it over normal Lasik. Some places call treatment
wavefront when really it is only wavefront guided (or something like that) and this may be the difference with the memory card situation.
Leon
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insx
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| posted on 30-11-2005 at 10:45 PM |
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Hi Leon
You are thinking of wavefont optimised vs wavefront guided, I think. These are features of Wavelight's lasers (and possibly others). It confused
the heck out of me at first but the director of Accuvision was kind enough to email me a bunch of articles from Journals explaining the difference.
I had 'optimised' in one eye and 'customised' in the other. A memory card is just one way of storing data so I assume that another
alternative would be to store it on a hard disk. There are probably umpteen ways to store data and get it to the laser. As far as I know, there was no
'card' in my case and yet my customised wavefront treatment plan made it's way into the treatment room somehow. There was certainly
some networking going on at the clinic - there was a hub with about 5 patch cables in the consultation room. Oh dear, boring IT speak!
Cheers
Tim
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insx
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| posted on 1-12-2005 at 08:58 AM |
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On the subject of risks, this was a really hard thing to pin down. Clinics will say the the risk of complications is 1 in a 1,000 whereas enemies of
LASIK will claim as much as 1 in 10! I suppose the question is what constitutes a complication. I decided to base my decision on the review site. When
you look there, you will see that something like 1 or 2 people out of each hundred are not entirely happy. Sometimes it's the result, sometimes
it's the customer service. I decided that I could live with a 1 in a 100 chance of minor complications and went for it.
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Leon
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| posted on 1-12-2005 at 06:03 PM |
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When I was doing research into the risks I looked at the lasik eyes site. With these things my mind ignores 100 positives if I find a negative and so
I found myself wading through page after page of success stories and thinking to myself "AHA I knew it was dangerous this guy only gave it one
star!"
When I looked deeper at the reasons for the one star (speaking purely for ultralase reviews as its the only one I looked at) they revolved around
things like a long wait, a surgeon not saying please and thank you enough times or that people werent friendly enough!
The very few that involved health problems were usually things like stinging eyes (within a day or two after treatment), halos or any number of things
that were posted about far too early as if fear had taken the persons mind off the fact they were told these things would happen IN THE SHORT TERM.
So overall, with some help from a calmer friend I realised I had to focus on the vast majority of positives, not to expect too much too soon (even
though I got more than I dreamt of sooner than I dared anticipate) and not to judge an entire company based on its P's and Q's!
Leon.
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MarcJ
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| posted on 5-1-2006 at 03:11 AM |
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Re the famed £400 memory card and it's suggested added safety - is it also not true that a human places said card into machine and at some point
puts that data on there? Ergo some error could potentially occur?
Not after a fight, just a thought!
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David Farrow
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| posted on 5-1-2006 at 10:18 AM |
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Hello MarcJ
That is a legitimate question. But there is significantly less chance of mixing a treatment card up than there is of making a mistake when manually
programming a laser with a myriad of data. It's far safer to programme the laser with data stored on a card that is unique to that particular
patient and has all their own information on it. There are also safeguards in place to make sure that the card used is the correct one.
Regards
David
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insx
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| posted on 5-1-2006 at 10:34 AM |
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As the card is combined with iris recognition, I don't suppose it would matter if they did put the wrong card in. The machine would go dit-derr
(Family Fortunes style) and refuse to treat the wrong patient.
This seems a useful safety feature although the lack of it did not stop me going elsewhere.
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