Mike Low

My problem was a rare condition of both Keratoconus and Fuchs endothelial dystrophy in both eyes.
A colleague in the medical field was sure there must be a solution, nevertheless after years of hiding the condition with ever increasing print size I took early retirement. I was then introduced to a young and charming eye surgeon Ali Mearza who like me was ex Imperial College. When we met he was honest and very encouraging.

Ali was offering a new approach where instead of full thickness corneal removal and numerous stitches, a small incision is made and the degraded cornea is removed from the inside leaving just the outer layer. The donated cornea is inserted and held in place by a gas bubble.

Needless to say I was concerned at rejection and the quality of resultant vision. However anything was better than the original prognosis and Ali supported his confidence with case studies and research.

The first eye was treated two years ago being the worst I had little to lose, and within weeks clear vision occurred revealing the true colour of the world for the first time in a decade. Within 6 months all I required was lens correction for reading. Over the intervening period the second eye deteriorated so badly it was affecting the overall vision. Given the first successful operation it was an easy decision to have the second eye treated and again the confidence of this brilliant surgeon made the whole decision process easy.