Why Lasik Eye Surgery And Why Me?
I can still remember that fateful day. I lay in bed, ready to get into my favorite book and it appeared that someone put a dimmer bulb in the bed lamp. Nope! Turns out that the head lamps were going dim a lot longer than I was aware of. It is fact of life that affects many of us and for me; it was around my 40th birthday. It wasn’t enough that I was going over the hill, its out I was having a hard time even seeing the hill.

So why and why is it so popular? has advantages over other procedures, including a relative lack of pain afterward and the fact that good vision is usually achieved by the very next day.

LASIK is the most commonly performed refractive surgery procedure. You may hear people calling it "LASIX," but the name is actually short for "laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis."

An instrument called a microkeratome is used in eye surgery to create a thin, circular flap in the cornea. Another, newer way of making the flap is with a laser.

LASIK: Revolutionising correction of refractive errors
LASIK, an unprecedented advancement in eye care, offers people a safe and simple opportunity to see the world clearly, minus the inconvenience or discomfort of scratched or lost contact lenses, or the blocked side vision of spectacles. In simple term LASIK is a revolutionary laser technique for correction of refractive errors.
LASIK surgery works wonders for Packers' Ferguson
Ferguson said he went to three doctors seeking a panacea for the headaches. One suggested that LASIK surgery probably would solve his eye problem and just might curb the headaches.
New, Improved LASIK Surgery
Just how much better this new ?wavefront-guided LASIK? works isn't proven yet, but it's causing excitement among eye surgeons who say the three-dimensional maps let them customize treatment in a way never before possible.
Opening Your Eyes To LASIK
More and more people are going under the laser to shed their glasses and contact lenses. So the Eye Surgery Education Council has issued new guidelines to help patients determine whether they could be candidates for laser eye surgery.
BLADE-FREE LASIK SURGERY
Are you near-sighted? Far-sighted? LASIK eye surgery could rid you of your glasses. But if fear of going under the blade is stopping you -- stop worrying. Now, a new blade-free approach.

Read more about the recently developed IntraLase laser that is used for this purpose.

The way the procedure works is that the surgeon folds the flap back out of the way, and then removes some corneal tissue underneath using an excimer laser. The excimer laser uses a cool ultraviolet light beam to precisely remove ("ablate") very tiny bits of tissue from the cornea to reshape it. When the cornea is reshaped in the right way, it works better to focus light into the eye and onto the retina, providing clearer vision than before. The flap is then laid back in place, covering the area where the corneal tissue was removed.

Both nearsighted and farsighted people can benefit from the procedure. With nearsighted people, the goal is to flatten the too-steep cornea; with farsighted people, a steeper cornea is desired. While this is not widely recognized by consumers, excimer lasers also can correct astigmatism by smoothing an irregular cornea into a more normal shape.

California eye surgery, which can cost thousands of dollars and will not be covered by most insurance companies, grew in popularity during the 1990s but slowed amid the 2001 recession. The numbers are slowly rising again, but some patients are squeamish about having blades inserted into their eyes, experts say.

The bottom line is surgery is becoming more common place. The number of surgeries performed each year is in the thousands and has become an extremely safe procedure. The best bet is to contact your personal physician, have him connect you with an eye specialist that will examine you and give the best possible advice to see if is right for you.