Patient Stories

We have many thousands of satisfied patients who have shared their stories. To publish them all we have created a patient experiences website you can read through at your leisure. Please enjoy our current feature story below.

Jamie Gray BMX Champion

Lasik certainly makes me a better athlete!
"my goal is to make the Olympic Team for Beijing in 2008"
Jamie Gray

At 25, Jamie certainly knows what it means to achieve goals. He started riding at the tender age of 4 — and won his first national championship when he was only 6 years old! By 2003 Jamie had already won 13 national championship titles! An unfortunate injury forced him to take some time out. Not for long — Jamie celebrated his come-back in 2005 at the World Championship in Paris. It was an exciting race — Jamie led the field and most likely would have won the world title. But it was not meant to be — not yet! Jamie's poor eyesight caused him to crash, yet he still managed to finish the race as the 8th in the world, and as the top Australian — a fantastic accomplishment considering Jamie had astigmatism and was myopic. Read more...

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Sights Set - Bicycling Australia

Sprinters need their eyes like a hunter needs a rifle sight.
This year I'll be looking at cycling with a new focus.
Robbie McEwan

IT'S a new season and I'm better prepared than ever. I've made some major changes during the off season - no new team, new bike or funny haircut, but things that have really made a difference to my condition and confidence. The biggest and best change I made during the off season was having my poor eyesight corrected. For years I have worn glasses or contact lenses and couldn't ride without them. I couldn't read a car number plate at 10 metres let alone see the finish properly from a kilometre.

So I decided to have refractive laser treatment to reshape my cornea. I had all the suitability tests with an ophthalmologist and with the surgeon himself. Dr Peter Stewart of LASERSIGHT Australasia performed the procedure at Maroochydore on December 17. What he did in the 40 minutes was to shave back a flap of the surface of my eye then apply the laser to re-shape the cornea. The flap is replaced and heals in a matter of minutes, plus the procedure is virtually painless. The rest of the day and night you have to wear protective shields over your eyes, so you look like a bug.

After a post-op the next morning I drove home - no glasses, no lenses! At about $2,200 per eye it's well worth it and they can treat short and far sightedness and astigmatism. I absolutely recommend the procedure to people who have been considering it or those who hate the drawbacks of corrective lenses.

My training is one of the things I've changed over this past summer. I had been doing the same thing each summer to prepare for the new season and although it had been working quite well, I was looking for an improvement to take me to the next level. We changed from doing three day blocks to doing long rides every second day with short easy rides and gym sessions every other day. Then Sunday was club crit day at the new, leg buckling, Nerang circuit. I hadn't done so much gym before and can now feel the benefits of spending time on the leg press machine.

After tuning up my body there came a time to test it so it was off to the crits. The Brisbane Crit was on again and had grown in every aspect. It was good to have a hit out again although I wasn't sharp enough to make the podium. The next Sunday was the inaugural Gold Coast International Criterium on the above mentioned circuit. I felt great and was able to take the win at home. Jason 'Bobby' Phillips made it one-two for our training group. I got my first win of '99 in the Robina New Year Crit here on the Gold Coast. So with some form in hand I took off to the Skilled Bay...

..."I stayed upright and had a clear line to the finish ending with another win."

Looking Good

Living on the Gold Coast has been a big boost to my off season training morale. We're only 250 m from the beach and close to the coolest coffee shops.The weather is great and we have a top training group. Gatez, Bobby and I get through some good kilometres along the coast and in the hinterland over the summer and we top each ride off with a coffee at The Three Beans.

Bullseye!

Stage one at Williamstown was my second win of the year, although only just. I won it after the officials watched the TV coverage which showed I won it on the throw to the line over Dave McKenzie. Stage two was at Portarlington and it was Dave Macca's revenge. He rode away from us and kept going. I took second to stay equal in the lead. Stage three was at Torquay. My team mate in the Fitzroy Cycles team, Jamie Carney, easily won in a two up sprint with Sturgess. I got third to edge out Macca by one point in the overall. Stage four was at Geelong. Things went just right for me and I was able to stretch my lead by winning the bunch sprint. Stage five at St. Kilda was the finale. I just had to shadow Dave and not crash in the last comer like two years ago to take the overall. I stayed upright and had a clear line to the finish and ended the series with another stage win and the overall.

Then it was back to Queensland and into the surf. On the Monday I went straight out for a surf with John from the bike shop on his malibus. That is what I miss when I'm away in Europe. Unfortunately I wasn't able to ride the Nationals due to team commitments in Holland, but hopefully that situation can be avoided next year so I can have a crack at the title.

I'm about to get on the plane back to Europe where I have the team medicals, testing and presentation after which I'm off to Mallorca for two weeks training and the Tour of Mallorca followed by the Ruta del Sol where I won the first stage last year. Then it's back to the cold north and the first of the spring classics.

I am ready.

Page 32, Bicycling Australia