Is Laser Eye Surgery Right for You?

By Debra Gordon





Learn More about Laser Surgery


  • All Refractive Surgery Is Not Created Equal! Here's what you need to know.

  • Questions About Laser Eye Surgery to Ask Your Doctor
    • For more than 20 years, writer Pat Curry’s first action upon waking up was to fumble for the glasses she needed to transform an otherwise blurred world. But on the morning of Jan. 3, that routine changed. Just 18 hours after having laser surgery to correct her nearsightedness, Curry, 42, woke to a crystal-clear view.


    A month after the surgery, she says she still catches herself smiling when she realizes she’s seeing something she couldn't see before without her glasses.


    “Sometimes it takes me a moment to realize that I don’t have to find my glasses before I can see what time the clock says, or before I head out the door to run an errand,” she says.


    Curry is just one of 1.8 million Americans each year who are throwing away their glasses and permanently disposing of their contact lenses in favor of a 20-minute operation on their eyes that, in most cases, provides them with perfect or nearly perfect vision. Called “refractive surgery,” the procedure has taken the ophthalmology profession by storm, becoming the most commonly performed laser eye surgery in the nation – even though patients generally pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for the procedure, since insurance seldom foots the bill. And the demand is expected to continue unabated: about 63 million people in the United States are candidates for the surgery.


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