Do you think about laser eye surgery? For some, the results can be devastating and leave you with regrets.

When Sohaib Ashraf was laser-treated to correct his myopia, he entered and exited the clinic in 30 minutes – the procedure itself only took ten minutes – but he had high hopes for the results.

"I was eager to see the numbers waking up in the morning and not having to look for glbades anymore," says Sohaib.

He has been wearing glbades since the age of five and adds: "Like many people, I was tired of it. I also wanted to improve my image, I was young and single at the time. "

Laser eye surgery has indeed changed lives – but not as he had expected. Sohaib, 32, who lives near Preston, Lancashire, with his wife Fahtima, 26, has developed blurred vision in the right eye, as well as "halos" and reflections in both.

Even worse, he suffers from permanent pain in his eyes.

"It never stops – I have not had a good night's sleep since the operation because I have to get up every hour to drop drops," he says. He also suffers from a "terrible" depression and his weight has risen from 13 to 21 – he is 5 feet 11 inches tall.

"This so-called simple procedure stole the best years of my life in a split second, and there is no cure," he says.

Sohaib had been treated with LASEK, where the cornea (the clear frontal part of the eye) was remodeled to correct vision defects.

He said, "It's so available that I thought it would be all right, especially since it was done by highly qualified surgeons. I came across horror stories on the internet, but I ignored them. I did some research on the best surgeons and found one in Manchester. "

Sohaib said he asked questions about the risks, but the surgeon "downplayed them as dry eyes, he badured me that I would go back after six months".

"He told me that complications were more common with old procedures and that patient selection had improved, reducing risk. I even asked him if he let his kids do it and he said yes. "

Rebadured, Sohaib underwent surgery in January 2013. A week later, he began to feel sharp pain – "as if I were being stabbed repeatedly."

"I now know that the pain was caused by a recurrent syndrome of erosion of the cornea – the surface of the eye is destroyed by the eyelid, which causes friction," he says. "Laser surgery can cause this because it removes the Bowman's layer just under the cornea. This means that the corneal cells are not anchored and that "erosions" can develop, where the cells are eliminated, thus exposing the corneal nerves, which are the most powerful pain generators throughout the body. "

At the time, however, Sohaib was told that his eyes were dry and that he had been given drops. But the problem did not improve and Sohaib ended up at the clinic month after month.

Eventually, she was diagnosed with recurrent corneal erosion and, two years after the initial procedure, she was offered another needle in which a needle is inserted into the eye to create a pattern of scar tissue, in order to adhere the corneal cells.

Sohaib refused because there was no long-term security data. "I could not risk my eyes getting worse," he says. "What happened was not the case of a surgeon who made a mistake or used a bad laser, I would argue that reshaping the cornea is an intrinsically dangerous technique.

"What I also noticed was the surgeon I saw, they were all wearing glbades; do they know something that we do not know about the risks? '

Bitter words, but not those that can be ignored. For Sohaib, he is a trained pharmacist and health economist at NICE, the National Institute for Excellence in Health and Care, where his job is to badyze data relating to efficacy, safety and health. saving of treatments in clinical guidelines.

He has used these skills in his own research on laser eye surgery – and says his findings are deeply troubling. Every year, about 100,000 Britons undergo eye refraction at a cost of about £ 4,000 for both eyes.

It's a big deal. It is estimated that the British market alone is worth at least £ 400 million a year. There are a number of techniques, including LASIK, which consists of cutting a flap in the cornea and a deeper layer of the eyeball, and the LASEK, Sohaib type, which reshapes the surface of the eye.

With ReLEx SMILE, a newer technique, a deeper layer of the eyeball is remodeled via a small incision rather than a flap.

The vast majority of patients are satisfied with the results, with surveys revealing 98% satisfaction rates for LASIK, for example. The complication rate is considered "low": the website of a leading ophthalmologist surgeon puts it at "less than one in 1,000" – usually dry eyes – and "in many cases" the problem is "temporary".

In its recommendations published in 2006, NICE itself indicated the risk of a more serious complication, ectasia (where the cornea swelled, affecting vision), after LASIK was only 0.2%.

And if things go wrong, "we can fix them – we have good solutions," says Bruce Allan, ophthalmologist surgeon consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and spokesman for the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.

"In about 1 in 5,000 cases, we will have to replace the cornea with a corneal transplant – but you do not become blind with LASIK," he says.

"One in ten to 20 patients will require a minor adjustment procedure that will take about 15 minutes and a day to recover.

"The Royal College of Ophthalmologists has published professional standards for refractive surgery, which is very safe in the UK because they are enforced by the regulator." Yet there are stories of how it went wrong.

In 2014, Stephanie Holloway, of Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire, was inflicted more than £ 500,000 in damages after a judge ruled that Optical Express n & # 39; She had not warned the young woman about the risks of LASEK.

She would have been left with blurred vision and sensitivity to light and had to live by candlelight.

According to Sohaib, there are many other cases, "but people can not speak, as if they were receiving a payment, they had to sign a gagging clause".

Just before Christmas, Jessica Starr, a well-known television presenter in the United States and a mother of two, committed suicide several days after publicly declaring that she was still suffering from eye problems and pain. eyes after a laser surgery in October.

The media have already been criticized for "unfairly" highlighting "rare" cases when things went wrong, one of the consultants we spoke to decided to dismiss them as "frustrated litigants" stories. But Sohaib explains that pbading under the rug of patient experiences will not make the problem go away.

With his own experience, he re-converted as a health economist in 2014 and has since identified worrying gaps in security data.

He cites as an example a major review, published in 2016 in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery, of 97 research papers that concluded that, overall, the results of modern LASIK were "significantly better". only during the introduction of technology.

The authors found that only 0.6% of patients suffered from vision loss of at least two lines on their vision chart and only 0.8% of them reported having dry eye at the end. from one year: "It is realistic to expect that surgical results and safety will continue to improve. & # 39;

Yet the majority of patients have been followed for just one month, says Sohaib. And, he adds: "The source of up to 52% of the data used is a mystery."

One of the major studies that the researchers identified, he said, was "an article on unpublished LASIK results, after one month in people with moderate to moderate myopia at Optical Express, an important LASIK provider ".

"This study was published in a supplement of the Journal of Refractive Surgery sponsored by Optical Express."

He adds, "We have been told over and over again that all the side effects are temporary, but we have plenty of evidence that this is not the case. I've also found evidence of a host of complications that you will not find on consent forms – including a risk of cataracts 15 years earlier than the rest of the population, a ten-fold risk of detachment from retina and corneal neuropathic pain. which led some to suicide.

"I find it incredible that there is not more long-term security data available for a procedure that's been around for 25 years, nor more high-quality data in general."

One of the few long-term studies, published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery in 2016, followed 2,530 patients under LASIK over a five-year period.

It revealed that 91% of patients were satisfied with their treatment and less than 2% reported vision problems. The lead author of the study was a global director of Optical Express and satisfaction rates do not replace safety data, says Sohaib.

Dr. Morris Waxler also believes that the risks and the rate of complications have been minimized. As a former head of the Ophthalmology Department at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Waxler chaired the initial panel that approved LASIK surgery in the eighties -ten.

He now wants laser eye surgery to be banned. "Regarding FDA approval, all contributions came from the refractive laser industry; there were very few opposing voices, and we were fooled into thinking you could take a blind eye, but that does not have terrible consequences, "said Dr. Waxler at Good Health.

"But if you cut the cornea, you weaken the strength of your eyes and the cornea never heals completely."

He began to question the technology in 2007, after patients contacted him complaining of complications such as corneal pain, dry eyes, loss of night vision, sensitivity to light, visual aberrations (such as halos) and deterioration of vision.

"I listened to them and took note of them, then I asked the FDA to de -authorise the refractive laser techniques."

Dr. Waxler, who states that problems arise with all techniques, recently badyzed the test data for the SMILE technique.

Twelve months postoperatively, the complication rate would be at least 16% (with 2.3% of patients with glare, 0.6% of halos, 3.8% of starburst, blurred vision of 2 , 6%, a double vision of 2.2%). vision, 0.6% fluctuation of vision, 1.9% focusing difficulties and 2.1% difficulties in judging depth and distance).

"It does not include the 0.66% ectasia that can occur five or ten years later, recurrent corneal erosions and retinal problems that can also occur years later," says Dr. Waxler.

"Neuropathic pain is still not recognized as a complication, but it certainly should be. Instead, consent forms make laser surgery a real piece of cake. "

He adds that surgeons do not follow patients enough to observe the long-term effects: "Most patients do not follow patients for more than six months. Then there are the patients who are so distraught by the complications that they have suffered that they never come back.

"This is the only area that creates a new eye disease from previously healthy eye."

Dr. Cynthia Mackay, recently retired ophthalmologist from New York, is another stated critic.

She told Good Health that she had doubts about laser eye surgery since the beginning: "The cornea has more nerve endings than any other part of the body and it was obvious to me that if it was cut off, the nerves would not grow back. they were before.

"In addition, the cornea is poorly supplied with blood, healing is slow and scar tissue is formed, which affects vision. Over the years, I have seen many patients with permanent neuropathic pain in their cornea after laser eye surgery. I saw that ruining lives.

"I know at least 22 suicides in the United States. I even know that people get their eyes peeled to stop the pain. Cases like these occur because doctors can not get rid of this type of pain, the nerves regenerate and miss each other and go crazy.

"Yes, there are people who are satisfied with LASIK, but what they do not realize is that this procedure exposes them to an increased risk of retinal detachment and early cataracts", she adds. "This is a very big scandal."

Bruce Allan, of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, strongly denies this. "It's wrong that laser surgery weakens the cornea and that one in three surgeons practicing refractive surgery has it itself," he says.

"It is also wrong to say that refractive surgery increases the risk of retinal detachment – people who are visually impaired are more likely to experience retinal detachment and are likely to have laser eye surgery. It is therefore incorrect to conclude that surgery raises the risk.

As for laser eye surgery triggering cataracts earlier, he categorically states, "This is false. This procedure has existed since 1992 and the fact is that people do not come back complaining about the treatment. Our clinics are not filled with people who have had complications. Most people who undergo laser surgery find it transformative. "

However, even the proven risks are underestimated – a survey from Laquelle? in 2014, a third of the 18 consultations given by High Street were "poor", with potential risks being minimized.

Ian Waghorne, a 46-year-old software engineer, has been wearing glbades or contact lenses since the age of 15. He decided that the £ 4,000 operation was a good idea, especially because he wanted to be able to swim and run without worrying about glbades.

Ian went to a High Street chain and told him he was the "ideal candidate."

"I mentioned that I had mild dry eye problems in the past [a recognised contraindication for refractive surgery] but no one has blinked. '

A week after a phone consultation with the surgeon, Ian, who lives in Stockport, Cheshire, with his wife Heather, 47, and their daughters Hannah, 16, and Faye, 13, had the procedure.

"The surgeon swept the risks, but my general impression was that it was a low-risk procedure. He then looked in my eyes and said, "Let's do it," and then asked me to initial a block of text on a form.

"I could not read it because I did not have my glbades. How much I regret it now, because I later learned that the surgeon wrote that I had a high risk of dry eyes – which he did not mention. "

In one day, Ian's eyes were extremely sensitive to light, and in the month of follow-up, the optometrist gave him some ointment and drops for dry eyes. His eyes became "very painful", but a few months later, at the clinic, he was told that everything was fine. Not convinced, he consulted an independent optometrist who diagnosed meibomian gland dysfunction, in which the eyelid glands do not secrete enough oil for tears – a contraindication to laser eye surgery.

He now has eyes so dry that it is difficult to watch a screen for more than ten minutes – a problem for a software engineer – and he suffers from depression because of the pain.

Ian spent about £ 4,000 on private consultations and treatments – he was finally treated in an NHS clinic with immunosuppressive therapy, which helped him slightly – but has no legal recourse because he signed the consent.

"I would have liked to leave my eyes alone. The impact it has had on me and my family has been terrible, "he says. "I would advise anyone to do it."

Sohaib has spent £ 5,000 in lawsuits, but he was advised that any claim would fail because recurring corneal erosion is not usually listed as a complication on the consent forms. "Yes, we can say that patients like us are in the minority – but that does not mean that we should not be heard and that the public should not be properly warned of potential dangers."

Optical Express declined to comment.