LASIK Eye Surgery: Learning About LASIK. LASIK is a surgical procedure intended to reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses. LASIK stands for Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis and is a procedure that permanently changes the shape of the cornea, the clear covering of the front of the eye, using an excimer laser.

Many have shied away from lasik Eye Surgery due to concerns with the risks involved. Others are simply and understandably uncomfortable with the concept of surgery to their eyes. Intralasik surgery, also known as "bladeless" or "all-laser lasik", goes a long way toward both minimizing risks and easing patient fears.

The two basic steps involved in any lasik Eye Surgery involve cutting a flap in the cornea and reshaping the cornea with an exicimer laser. In traditional Lasik the corneal flap cut is made with a mechanical microkeratome blade. The only major difference in traditional Lasik and IntraLasik is in the method of cutting the corneal flap. IntraLasik (or "all-laser lasik") utilizes a computer programmed femtosecond laser microkeratome to create the corneal flap, as opposed to the mechanical blade utilized in traditional lasik. Utilizing IntraLasik software, the flap is cut with an infrared laser to an exact pre-programmed depth, position, and thickness. The laser does not alter the corneal curvature, affect the prescription, or cause damage too surrounding tissue.

The obvious huge advantage to IntraLasik is the predictability and accuracy of the corneal flap cut. This translates into a much lower possibility of flap related complications such as corneal abrasion, thin flap, thick flap, partial flap, incorrect diameter, or buttonhole flaps. A few recent studies have also suggested that Intralasik provides better vision contrast sensitivity. There are several minor possible disadvantages of IntraLasik which may include temporary eye redness and increased corneal edema. These issues generally resolve during the healing period. A small percentage of Intralasik patients also develop photophobia (light sensitivity) which can last for a period of weeks. The creation of flaps in the cornea to correct types of vision problems, originates from the work carried out by Dr Jose Barraquer, who pioneered vision correction procedures during the 1940s. There were many variations to the theme of refractive correction using flaps of the cornea, but their success was a little limited due to lack of technological developments.

During the 1950s and 1960s, procedures were carried out with surgical instruments rather than lasers, so they were much less accurate than present day procedures. It was in the 1980s however that the Excimer Laser or the cool laser beam was invented and is still used today but in a much more refined form. The idea of combining this corneal flap with the surgery that was being performed in the 1980s with the Excimer Laser, went on to become known as Lasik or Laser Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis. It is important also to take a look at the history of these two components of LASIK to rest assured of its excellent and long-term safety record. At least ten years experience is to be drawn on for this combination of two procedures in the form of LASIK. To date, there have been several versions of Excimer Laser equipment, each version improving on the previous version.