Marc

I had PRK in both eyes, done in Germany in 1996. Unfortunately, the fact that I have Keratoconus was not detected at that time. PRK probably made my Keratoconus progress rapidly. And this large irregular astigmatism started off a long difficult few years of intolerable muscle spasms.

I have seen 5 of the most recognised names in the industry travelling around Germany, to New York. One doctor did a topography custom treatment of both eyes, which did not really help. In New York I was told there was nothing available to correct my “decentration”. In Germany one doctor performed epi-keratophakia twice in the right eye, but without helping. I finally had corneal transplants in both eyes in Germany followed by LASIK in both transplants.

Unfortunately I do not tolerate RGP’s although they eliminated the muscle spasms temporarely. I tried about 15 ( regular, reverse geometry, macros, z-wave). I had my tear ducts closed etc.

This brings us to September 2001. From that time, I have been incapacitated by eyestrain, pain, muscle spasms , triple vision, multifocality and total exhaustion all day. I have been unable to work because of constant distraction and exhaustion of my eyes with spasms. My transplant/LASIK surgeon told me that there was “no problem” with my eyes, since they were seeing about 20/20 . But I KNEW there was a problem. I was made to feel that I was from Mars. I found Dr. Reinstein through the Centre Hospitalier National d’Ophtalmologie des XV-XX in Paris, and subsequently through some of his writing, gained confidence to travel to London to see him. He personally spent a few hours evaluating me. He did not simply dismiss my complaints. Another big difference was that he has equipment for measuring irregular corneas that is at the leading edge of what is available. He measured my corneal thickness and determined the amount of tissue available under my flaps by Artemis (VHF digital Ultrasound). He uses the WASCA (Carl Zeiss Meditec) aberrometer which has the highest resolution of any of the wavefront machines available. He was able show me a video wavefront measurement – this consisted of 70 wavefront measurements taken over a 10 second period which demonstrated even to me that the measurements were very reproducible.

We decided to tackle the right eye first. He performed a flap-lift on my transplanted LASIK cornea at the beginning of November 2002. He performed the custom treatment using the WASCA data and the MEL70 G-scan laser. Recovery was completely painless overnight. The next morning I could immediately feel the absolutely reduced mutifocality of my vision and there was no eyestrain. I have continued to have improvement in this since the surgery, which I am told is expected, as the surface epithelium changes. I just saw him for the 1 month visit, and the WASCA demonstrates a significant reduction in my spherical aberration now practically down to ‘normal’ levels, although there is still some asymmetry. We look forward to performing an enhancement of this at the 3-month time point.

Dr. Reinstein is absolutely committed to dealing with complicated cases, and really gives you all the time and the energy he has to see you through these nightmares. He is absolutely willing (and obviously capable) to find solutions where others just shake their heads, and he has the ultrasound technology he developed, gives unique information that enables him to really understand the structure of what is going on in the cornea. After a long protracted few years of this nightmare, I am finally beginning to return to normal.

Sincerely

Marc