A patient who had seen our practice on KEYT TV in Santa Barbara came in for a consultation today to see if she was a candidate for LASIK. She was a long term contact lens wearer and surprised to find out about the risks of wearing contact lenses and how they compared to the risk of modern laser vision correction eye surgery.  Approximately 41 million Americans age 18 or older wear contact lenses each year. An astonishing one third of of these contact lens wearers at some point experience red or painful eyes requiring medical attention related to contact lens use and abuse. Nearly one million visits end up with a diagnosis of keratitis (inflammation or infection of the cornea from contact lenses) with an annual cost to the health care system of $175 million dollars.  A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC) points out some of the reasons contact lenses carry the risk they do. The study, the Contact Lens Risk Survey, was performed in collaboration with the Contact Lens Assessment in Youth (CLAY group), a university-based research group. The survey included approximately 1,000 contact lens wearers. The Contact Lens Risk Survey showed that over 99% of American contact lens wearers engage in at least one behavior that increases the chance of infection and eye damage. Of these dangerous practices, the most common were leaving the contact lenses in too long (82.3%) and topping off the contact lens cleaning solution in the case rather than replacing it with new cleaning solution (55.1%). While both modern LASIK and PRK laser eye surgery do carry an element of risk, it is important to remember that the alternative of ongoing contact lens wear also is not risk free.