You're also likely to need glasses at night or in movie theaters. Be sure to tell the doctor if you or anyone in your family has ever had a corneal disorder, diabetes or an autoimmune disease. Such conditions may increase the chances that laser surgery will severely damage your eyesight. If you have particularly dry eyes or an ocular herpes infection, you aren't a good candidate either. If the first surgeon turns you down, don't go shopping for another.
Some ophthalmologists apparently start zapping corneas after little more than a weekend seminar.
That might be enough preparation for a surgeon who is already skilled, but you may decide to select a more experienced doctor, such as a cornea specialist who has completed a year or two of additional training. Early studies also showed that the complication rates for individual surgeons underwent two significant drops, after 300 and 600 procedures. If the doctor won't tell you what his or her complication rate is, find another one. For top doctors the figure is under 3 in 1,000. Only you can decide whether the benefits are worth the small but very real risk of irreversible damage to your eyesight.