Overall I am happy with my laser eye surgery from London Eye Centre (LEC). They are very professional, have a good facility, have modern equipment, and seem to be involved with a lot of research on laser eye treatments. In my experience, and from what I have read in other reviews, LEC is probably the best laser eye treatment facility in the greater Vancouver area.
After my consultation I was told that I was eligible for both the SBK and PRK procedures, and chose SBK mainly for its shorter recovery time. PRK is cheaper ($3200 for both eyes, compared to $3600 for both eyes with SBK), and is sometimes regarded as being safer than SBK because of the complications that can happen with the flap that is created with SBK. However, from what I understand the all-laser SBK procedure that LEC performs has very few flap-related issues, and overall is pretty much as safe as PRK.
My recovery went pretty well. The first evening after surgery I mainly rested with my eyes closed. My eyes were quite sore that evening, I had a fairly strong burning sensation in them, and it kept feeling like there was an eyelash in my eye (there wasn't actually one; this is a common sensation after laser eye surgery). The supplied pain-relieving eye drops really helped. I was also supplied with Tylenol 3 and sleeping pills, but I never needed to use these. For this whole evening, my vision was very cloudy (like seeing through a fog), blurry (like a slightly-off prescription of glasses), and there was strong glare/halos around lights. I was also very sensitive to light.
The second day was similar to the first evening, but everything was moderately better. I still didn't feel that my vision was good enough for driving though. At my day-after checkup with LEC the optometrist said that everything was recovering well.
Over the next few days everything slowly got better each day. Four days after the surgery I was driving, but it was difficult due to it being a bright sunny day. Had it been cloudy, it would have been fine. I didn't drive at night until a week after surgery: glare/halos from headlights were too intense before that.
At 2 months my right eye was at 20/20, and my left was at 20/40, which works out to a combined 20/25 vision. The main issue with the left eye at this point was double vision: I would see a faint ghost image slightly off to the side of the main image, which is essentially astigmatism. The left had strong astigmatism before the surgery, so I'm not too surprised by this.
It has now been 4 months and both eyes are at 20/20. The double vision from the left eye is mostly gone now. I am very satisfied with this, considering my vision before surgery was around 20/400. With a strong prescription like this, full recovery can take a few months (as in my case), and sometimes you won't get quite to 20/20, especially if you have strong astigmatism. At this point, halos/glare from point-source lights at night have reduced quite a bit, but they're still a little worse than when I had glasses. I'm hopeful this will continue getting better though.
Overall I recommend London Eye Centre, and laser eye surgery in general. The freedom from not having glasses is great: I can see when I wake up, I can swim, I don't have to clean the glasses multiple times per day, I have peripheral vision again, I don't have to worry about scratching my glasses, and overall my vision is clearer (all glasses create some amount of glare or reflection). Just make sure you're a good candidate before doing it. Some people are more prone to certain complications, like halos/glare at night. Note that if you get a referral from someone who has had laser eye surgery at LEC in the past, you'll get a discount on your procedure. It used to be $500 off ($250/eye), but when I did it I got $250 off ($125/eye), so I guess things have changed. Just make sure to mention the referral in the consultation info sheet you fill out. read more
