Getting Laser Eye Surgery - Does It Hurt?! My Full Experience

Good morning everyone. Today is a very different video to what you're used to on the channel. Today is a bit of a life-changing, a lot of a life-changing day for me because I'm getting my eyes lasered and I will no longer be needing these. I nearly like snapped them in half for the video. I thought I've actually got to get them. Oh my god no you still need them for now. I'm just having my final breakfast as a glasses wearer but in minus that we need to leave five minutes. We need to go to Optimax in Hove who are lasering my eyes today so I'm having the LASIK treatment. I'll tell you more about this like throughout this video about like the procedure and stuff and how it works but we are in a bit of a rush now so we should probably get going. Let's go. So we've just arrived at Optimax in Hove. I am feeling quite nervous. I've had a few different consultations before here. So the initial one where they like test your eyes, check that you can actually have it and then last weekend I met the surgeon who actually does the treatments. I'll show you the guy. Hang on, here he is. This guy and he's done like 30,000 treatments before which really like puts my mind at ease because he clearly knows what he's doing. So I met him last week and that's just like the final check to see if in his opinion I'm okay to have it because I am quite young. I'm 21 so I'm quite young to be having it because your eyes can change quite a lot but I just I think it's the right time and I don't want to wear glasses and contacts anymore. Just it winds me up in the morning having to like do something to be able to see. Like you struggle seeing because you can't open your eyes in the morning but that's a whole different. That's just because I'm tired. That's a whole different story but it's going to be great like actually being able to see but so today this morning you're not allowed to wear any makeup as you can see, no perfume or anything like that, no hairspray, hair's back and as I've got quite dry eyes I've been taking flaxseed oil tablets and these little teardrops they gave me to make my eyes less dry and because one of the side effects on this for younger people is dry eyes. If they're already dry they'll be dry and that won't be good. I'm not sure what to expect afterwards to be honest with you and I have been watching too many videos on YouTube where they're like showing you how they do it where they like cut your eye, let the flap slice it open with the lasers, peel it back and then bash the lasers into the eye to create your vision and like that's the worst thing I could have done because like as soon as I knew I was having it I'm like googling this stuff and now I can see what they do and it's crazy like how clever it is and the guy was saying my surgeon, excuse me, my surgeon was saying that basically sets up like what I'm meant to have and then the computer works the rest of it out and where the lasers go like how clever is that and this isn't like new technology either because it's been around for a while hasn't it? Yeah. Like it blows my mind that a computer can work out how I'm gonna see. So I'm gonna take you guys with me into the clinic now. I know that I can't get George to film when I'm actually having it done and they were saying that not like no one's allowed in that room it's just literally me and the surgeon just because of like I don't know things can go wrong I suppose and they want to eliminate all that risk so George will be staying outside you're probably gonna find a coffee shop here aren't you and have some breakfast. Of course, we're in Hove like the best the best mini tap. Mini tap. The best area for coffee and breakfast so like. Right this vlog's about me. Yeah I know but I'm still it's still my channel as well. Yeah I'm just gonna go and get some breakfast I'm being I'm here today to support Lucy and be like the best boyfriend I can be by driving her to the appointment driving her home. Sorry. In the middle going for a nice breakfast on my own. Exactly and you said to me this morning that you'd get me breakfast and a coffee and you didn't I had to do it myself. Oh but I just needed to stay in bed a little bit longer. It's not it's not been very good so far but hopefully this afternoon that would change. I'm not too sure how I'm going to be after as in like apparently like your eyes can get quite bruised. Apparently I'm able to drive again tomorrow which again boggles my mind. I'm having a LASIK treatment so there's a few different ones there's IK and EK so LASIK is what I'm having which is the quicker recovery and the less pain one which is perfect. Also I'd like to take this moment to thank Optimax so they have actually agreed to give me this treatment complimentary today which is amazing and it's going to be like life-changing isn't it for me so thank you so much and I'm going to show you guys like they've got loads of clinics around the country so even if you're not locally from here you'll be able to go there if you're considering this treatment and I'm literally going to go through like everything with you and how it feels and how if you're nervous about getting it done what it's actually like to be in the room getting it done and like how the clamp feels and when they do the actual laser if you can feel anything. Apparently you can smell your eyes but yeah I'm so excited I am really excited although I'm nervous who wouldn't be nervous it's gonna be so good it's gonna be you'll be able to just wake up and see but you can do that already yeah I know but I know but I relate um in the way that I imagine myself not being able to wake up and see like like I take that so for granted yeah like if I couldn't if I had to wear glasses if I had to put contacts in just to see and if I my normal vision was just blurry yeah I'd be like what the hell so I totally I totally understand why you want to get this done and my vision at the moment like it is quite bad it's like minus five and I always forget which one's bad they're very different this is like minus 1.25 this is like minus five so they're very different and I do struggle seeing anything like I couldn't drive without my glasses on now like I can't really see number plates but like I said I don't know how much we can film even like before and stuff I don't want to be too like intrusive with like the guys in there because they're doing a job and it's obviously quite an important one but even if we can't film much in there you'll see like the whole experience afterwards and the rest of our day and see how I'm getting on in terms of recovery so thanks for watching um we hope you're all looking forward to seeing how it all goes and the journey we're actually early for once so we're outside the clinic now at 15 minutes for my appointment so we probably should go in now shouldn't we let's go get there hello how are you good morning so have a read through the confirmation consent form once you're happy with it you sign click name and pop today's date down and then doctor will sign that as well when he calls you through so Lucy has just gone in to the clinic I can't be in the room obviously so I've come out to find some breakfast it's a lovely lovely day today she's been quite nervous bless her but the benefits are going to be so so good we've come to one of our favorite places at Hove called Hicks and Green which is where Lucy and I held our Brighton vloggers and vloggers event they let us use the upstairs of this place now order some breakfast get a coffee and do some work going for a flat white guys of course look at that perfection in a cup and I'm thinking of going for the avocado maybe eggs on toast and add some bacon or something like that this is exactly why I come here for breakfast have a look at this you can get a lemon delicious yeah down the road sorted can't see your bloody face you're done it's not too bad you're walking into a sign see I can see that you can tell me better we've been home a couple of hours now we picked up some snacks as you saw because it was good for Lucy to eat something straight after the surgery she's been resting for a couple of hours we've been doing her eye drops and stuff she said we could go in and ask her how she's doing I'm not like some beast and it's like she said we can come and say hi you pretty much are because we have to put um our curtains are really bad they're not like black they're net they're literally just nets so we had to put up blankets and stuff on the curtains so there wasn't too much light getting in so it's going to be quite dark in here bear with us it's literally like I'm a newborn baby you're not a newborn baby you're like we can go and see her if we're really quiet that pretty much is it I can't even see anything right so I'm going to tell you more about actually what happened later because currently I can't look at screens and strain my eyes which I'm doing now um you're welcome guys um but I just thought I'd show you guys um how I am currently honestly the last like since the last hour has been okay the hour before that wasn't great like my eyes have been stinging quite badly but then they've given us I'll go through all the medication in the bag and stuff they give you later on but I'd rather do that when I can actually see everything clearly because it's still not quite there yet but in the next few hours hopefully or even by tomorrow it'll be nice and clear but in the bag of medication they give you there's this little one that's the same medication that they use to numb your eyes during the actual treatment so I'm conscious I spilt pasta down myself earlier that's disgusting I've actually had to use some of that and like this afternoon they said it like literally varies each person like how like much pain you're in some people don't get any pain some people get a little bit mine was stinging quite badly when I was trying to get to sleep so I couldn't sleep and they say to rest your eyes as part of it to help it all heal so um yeah I took a few of them didn't I was like no I can do it on my own don't worry and then actually if you have got someone there to help you put them in do it because it makes such a difference um having someone to actually just do the drops for you I've been useful no I've been useful you've been useful right extremely useful you have been quite good to be fair I will give you that I wish I could see how I look because I can't but um George is saying that I've and I can't I can see I'm being dramatic when I first came out it was very very blurry um completely expected I wasn't that sensitive to the light but then when I got home I was quite sensitive like because all the numbing stuff had worn off by that time and that's when I needed to put some more in to make me in less pain now I feel okay like I can walk out then I'm a bit like oh it's a bit bright but it's not too bad when I came out George noticed this little red thing and it's just like they call it bruising but it's just like a red part of my eye um do you want to get a little zoom in yeah let's try and it doesn't hurt but it looks kind of gross can you see it okay yeah it's quite bad actually thank you but it's fine like I was looking at what like not now but like before he said about bruising I looked it up and it's normal and there's some that like cover half your eye so I think I've done quite well here definitely I wonder why that is why it's that one and not that one and that's there okay get some more rest I don't want to I'm bored we'll see you soon like I'm the worst for this like I can't be told to rest if I want to sleep I'll sleep but otherwise I'm just like no I want to be doing stuff I can't watch tv I can't go on my phone I can't read so I'm gonna sit here eating bits of coconut round trees randoms and lucasade we'll see you soon bye so since you last saw me I'm feeling a lot better I'm still like I'm seeing much better than earlier I can see like close-up stuff's like really clear far away still a little bit blurry but they said it won't be perfect or how it should be until the morning so that's fine um in terms of the pain all it is now is it feels like it kind of feels like there's some grit in my eyes it's really hard to explain like obviously they've cut like the okay if you don't know how the procedure works I'm not a I'm not a surgeon an optometrist I don't know what I'm talking about really but from what they've said to me and having had it done the what what I can't talk the way it works and what they do is they so you go into the room let me let me go from step one so you go into the room it's a freezing cold room because of the lasers they have to have the air con on really really high so if you're getting it done I'm sure they'll advise you anyway but make sure you wear quite a few like layers because I wore a tiny little top in because I wore a jumper I spilled coffee down it on the way so I took it off and I was wearing a little top and so they ended up putting like a foil blanket over me to keep me warm so the room's really cold because the lasers if it's like a normal room temperature that lasers will overheat which isn't good and so you want to keep the lasers as cool as possible you get into the room you lay down your hair's put into a to make yourself look even better in your foil blanket the surgeon like I cannot say like how good he is like he makes you feel so at ease he talks you through everything tells you how great you're doing I'm literally just lying there my eyes open he's telling me I'm doing a good job of it so and the two like no I don't know you call them nurses or like the two people in the room helping him or great as well they basically talk you through the whole thing but you're lying down to your left so like you're lying flat and then they kind of tilt the bed so you're under the left machine first and they took you to the right the left one cuts the flap in the eye the right one is the laser that actually corrects your vision so in cutting the flap this was the worst bit for me they'd already put these drops in my eye and they're the ones I was saying about earlier that make your eye numb I'm fine with eye drops they said quite a few people don't like eye drops they flinch quite a bit and find that quite uncomfortable but I'm fairly used to it I'll put my fingers in my eyes for contact lenses normally so that doesn't bother me so I was lying there putting them in they then clamp your eye open so one at a time so one's got like a patch over it the other one's been clamped open I don't know how they I kind of only just felt it I couldn't really see what they were doing but all I can explain it was like it felt like there was one clamp and then something else that went on and like twisted to like lock the clamp in place or something just to keep your eye fully open and because you've got anesthetic on your eyes you don't really feel the need to blink so it's not an that's what I was worried about feeling like I was going to blink the clamp shut and it was going to be really painful but you don't really feel the need to because your eyes kind of numb your eyes now fully open then the machine kind of goes onto your eye so that it lines it all up properly and makes the cut that was the worst bit because it was like quite heavy pressure on your eye and the only way I can describe it I don't I don't recommend you do this but if you like put pressure or your eye shut and like put pressure on your eyelid it's kind of that pain but like deeper into your eye like a like a like an achy type pain but it's not okay it's not a pain that's the wrong word it's just a little uncomfortable that bit they basically cut a slit in your eye see I'm saying all this but thinking about it I don't really know what they were doing anyway you're here to find out about what it feels like not how it actually works there's other videos on YouTube to see that so anyway they do that take the clamp off and put the patch over this eye do the same on the other eye leave that one open and they twist you to the right machine the right machine is the lasers and this was weird like it didn't hurt at all before you worry like this that was the last bit of pain with that bit no more pain it's uncomfortable again putting the clamp in because the clamp kind of goes squeeze it and then as they open the clamp it pushes back on your eye and you can kind of feel it going around a little bit no pain just a bit of a weird feeling the clamps kind of like you know them um cooking things like the tongs where you like push in and it opens it's kind of like that and then like you close it and pull it and then it shuts and locks it and that's the only way I can describe it the clamps back on you're under the second machine and the laser he gives you like a practice run while he's like lining you up or something and you can just hear like a that's what the laser sounds like two things to be relatable here firstly the sound of the laser actually correcting your vision I think it like bashes down on your cornea might be wrong and that corrects your vision but again don't take my word for it I don't know you know when you have them like net things that catch flies but electrocute them it's like and it kills a fly while swatting it like a flight like an electric fly swap that's what it sounds like exactly like that and you can smell your eye burning like it smells of someone there said it's not burnt hair I thought it's not a burnt cheese you know when you've got like an I don't know we sometimes put like bagels and fry them a little bit to make them nice each side and a bit of cheese might slip onto the edge and it burns like at the very end bit of burning when the cheese is black because you've forgotten about it that's what it smelled like to me and that was like an instant smell it was quite a strong smell as well I was trying to like hold my breath so I didn't smell it but then I had to breathe so I smelled it there's a bit of lasering there and then there's like I couldn't I couldn't quite hear what he was saying because he was like murmuring it to someone else but it was like the laser bit was like 45 seconds in this eye and 22 in this eye because that eye is way worse than that eye and then the second bit was the wide something but I didn't hear what he said but it's like a less intense something again you can kind of feel it but it doesn't hurt at all you just kind of know it's happening and then they take the clamp off they put the flat back over your eye which you can you can't feel but you know they're doing it you can kind of see in your world if it was a bit wobbly um and then literally do the same thing they put some more like fluid in your eye the anesthetic and some like teardrop stuff and then they're like yeah open your eyes and sit up when you're ready and it's like that's it he's like what would you mean that's it like the flaps have been closed and that's it it's crazy uh then you go outside it's very um bright you'll be very sensitive to the light in the consultation I did have dilating drops um which make your pupils much bigger and really sensitive to the light it wasn't as bad as that because I suffered quite badly from that and the rest of that day I couldn't see a thing because it was so bright that was about a month ago now but this wasn't quite as bad um I put my sunglasses straight on it was fine I sat outside for a bit not outside like outside in the waiting bit and just had a glass of water and then 10 minutes later the surgeon pulled me back into like the other room just to check it was all okay this I did have a tiny little fiber underneath the flap so he had to reopen it just while I was sat there with my look like no clamp it's so crazy I don't know how they do it but it was like a little bottle with some water and then like a little um little pin like a really like a needle but kind of gone like that so it's like something to open it with and then squeeze water in to get rid of this fiber and then close it again you go home you're told to rest to not look at screens um for the day which I don't know I feel okay so I'm looking at this screen but I'm going to not look at many more tonight you're not meant to strain your eyes you might stay in the dark as you saw earlier we don't have very good curtains so we like form our own and you do find that you're quite sensitive to the light for a while the pain was quite bad but I don't think that's common and it was only really in my right eye I don't literally these little drops once you put the drops in every sort of half an hour you're absolutely fine then towards the end of the half an hour it's quite sore but again just keep using the drops it's fine speaking of drops they give you a bag filled with stuff um there's so much in here so there's again I don't know all about these things but there's four different things they give you uh in terms of where have I put it all you take these every two hours for the first 24 hours and then it's four times a day for a week so the yellow ones and then it's pink and then it's teardrops and then it's if you need anesthetic use anesthetic so they basically they talk you through all of that while you're actually there one of them was like an antibiotic the second one was called fml but I can't remember what it does this is my alarm telling me to take my drops good timing these are called hydromed I was using these before anyway because at my surgeon's consultation last week he said I've got dry eyes naturally as I was saying earlier and um these are just like artificial tears they basically just lubricate the eyes so then you just use them as much as you want really but between each of these so you don't wash each one out you're meant to wait five ten minutes hilarious I have to wear this and this to bed tonight apparently you have to like do that and there's little like holes in it so your eyes can breathe and I have to tape them to my face so that when because I was worried about this because when I wake up I'm like oh like rubbing my eyes like because I don't know where I am or what I'm doing normally so I've got to tape these to my face so that I don't rub my eyes in the morning I'm like a wasp and I just had a shower and because I can't get my face wet for two weeks I've got to wear goggles in the shower anyway I'm really pleased with how it's gone I'm glad it's over because I've been quite worried about this but hopefully this video has put some of your minds at ease at how the whole procedure works and if you've got any any questions at all anything to do with anything on laser eye surgery or with Optimax then please you comment below and I'll be answering your questions we'll put links below to Optimax as well so you can get booked in for your treatment they have been really good and again thank you so much to them Optimax for allowing me to get my eyes sorted out because this is a huge difference for me already and it's just going to be amazing for now to actually see when I wake up in the morning so I'm super excited I'm a bit concerned because Jordan's cooking dinner and I can hear things going on so I need to go and see how that's going but thank you so much for watching today and for all your lovely messages from my Instagram stories throughout today and please give this video a big thumbs up if you've enjoyed it or if it's helped you I know for our usual subscribers it may not be the kind of vlog you're used to but a lot of you that I've told I'm getting this done have asked for a video just to share my experience the whole day so subscribe if you're new we normally do like travel-y or couple-y videos on this channel and we've got loads of exciting things planned soon so again thanks for watching and I'll see you see what I did there very soon bye