Table 1 Patient experience with laser peripheral iridotomy.

Participant 1

“I was quite apprehensive I have to say you put me absolutely at ease. I was quite surprised when you described it to me as to what it would be, and the sort of tingling the type of feeling that I would feel. It was totally different than that I mean it genuinely felt like an electric shock to the back of the eye socket and you had me recoiling at the time. When you touch a light switch and you get a shock, it was like that, through the eyeball”

Participant 2

“My experienced was it was painful, and I wanted to stop because it was really painful it was uncomfortable but I thought okay he’s done this millions of times, he knows what he’s doing maybe it’s just normal. But at some point I pulled away from this, just because it was so intense. I thought that I would have an anaesthetic and I wouldn’t feel anything but it was the opposite experience, so it was very painful. I had more anaesthetic drops, then, and it was then better, but if I could avoid it I wouldn’t want to have it again, it was not pleasant for me at all. It was awful like someone shocked into my eye socket. It had the stinging effect like you got stung by a bee or something, just the impact of it was excruciating”.

Participant 3

“I guess, initially, I was thinking I don’t even know if I want this, it sounds horrific. I went in had it and would say I didn’t actually feel a thing. It was nothing like my expectation of it, I didn’t have any discomfort afterwards”.

Participant 4

“I’d say I had a fairly easy pain free experience I know the second I felt slightly more than the first but not to the extent that it sounds as though some others of you”

Participant 5

“I actually feel like the others it was like being shot, it was agonizing it really was but for me, there was no alternative and well the alternative was losing the sight potentially in my right eye, so there was no choice, and I was really grateful to have it done”