Shobna Gulati

When actor Shobna Gulati found that her vision had started to deteriorate over the years, leaving her struggling to read scripts and impacting on her confidence at work, she knew that she had to make a change. Opting for varifocal glasses to correct her vision, she quickly realised that she struggled to get accustomed to them, and that this left her more vulnerable to trips and falls. Keen to opt for an alternative solution, she decided to book a consultation at Optical Express and was delighted to find that she was a suitable candidate for lens replacement surgery.

“When I transferred to varifocals, it was freeing for a time, but as my varifocal prescription got more, sometimes if I looked down I wouldn’t see a step and I would trip, especially going down to a tube because you’re rushing and I’d look down and miss the step. It was a complicated thing, it’s not a solution,” she explains. As she was also occasionally forced to rely on disposable contact lenses during auditions, Shobna grew increasingly worried about the environmental impact of her vision correction choices. “I felt quite bad using them because they were disposable and I hate everything about plastics, so throwing them away I felt like I was probably adding to the plastic content in water that we’re all so familiar with now,” she says.

Booking in for lens replacement surgery at our state-of-the-art Bridgewater clinic, Shobna was treated by one of our world-leading ophthalmic surgeons, Dr Jan Venter. “He absolutely put me at ease, and he kind of managed my expectations as well. He talked me through everything and I think that was really important to hear that from the surgeon in person,” she comments. As the team took their time to ensure that she felt comfortable every step of the way, explaining the procedure in more detail and guiding her through the process, she felt confident going into surgery: “I knew that my eyes were being prepared for surgery and I knew exactly what was going on, and I knew what they were putting in my eyes and I knew every step of the way. Everybody was very, very friendly.”

Shobna is thrilled at the prospect of not having to wear her glasses any longer, describing it as an incredible feeling of freedom. Not only is her vision clearer and sharper after lens replacement surgery, she has also observed a significant change in the perception of colours: “It’s vivid, it feels like life has been filtered in technicolour. I feel like I’ve come out from being in the black and white Wizard of Oz to being in Oz and everything is technicolour.” Impressed with the world-class technology available at Optical Express, she is over the moon with the results of her treatment. “It’s mind-blowing that I’ve got a lens in my eye that can do what it does,” she says.

As having complete visual freedom has massively boosted her confidence, Shobna is excited to get back to work and already has some exciting projects lined up: “I’m filming in another month and I’m actually doing a radio play. I’m so looking forward to doing the radio play without having to wear my glasses all day, for seven hours, concentrating hard. I’m just really looking forward to being able to just look at the script. I wish I’d done it sooner.”