Being a mum to two young children, Rachel had started to see her contact lenses as a massive inconvenience.

Taking up time in the mornings, and preventing her from being able to participate in activities such as swimming, she became increasingly frustrated with her vision: “Running around in the morning, and constantly having to sort out my contact lenses if they didn’t go in right, that delays time. One of the other big frustrations for me was things like sports, taking my children to swim, as I wouldn’t be able to see properly. They are the ways in which it became this constant irritation.”

Also noticing that her eyesight started to deteriorate, she felt less and less confident when she wasn’t wearing her contact lenses: “As my eyesight got worse, when I didn’t have my contact lenses in or my glasses on, your world just shrinks”.

Motivated by the fact that she had a big birthday coming up, and with the global pandemic having made her re-evaluate and re-consider what she found important, she eventually decided that it was time to stop procrastinating and made an appointment at her local Optical Express clinic in Chester.

While she felt a little bit apprehensive before her surgery, having read up on the treatment beforehand made her feel more confident on the day: “I knew having read up that it was actually something that is very low risk. I was surprised to find out that actually, the risks associated with my contact lenses were far higher than the surgery itself. So things like that were really reassuring.”

Within 24 hours after her surgery, Rachel’s vision had already massively improved, achieving better than 20|20 vision. She is now excited to start experiencing life without the need for her contact lenses or glasses and wishes she had done it years ago: “One of my big things at some point is being able to actually go onto a beach and go in the sea, and just be able to see and snorkel and stuff. So that’s something to look forward to.”

When asked if she would recommend having laser eye surgery to others, Rachel commented: “I would highly recommend it, the benefits are huge. I’m so so pleased I’ve done it. I would recommend Optical Express, I think the service has been excellent, people have been really friendly, highly professional. The treatment itself, the results speak for itself, so yes I would highly recommend Optical Express.”