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LASIK eye surgery is a procedure that can reduce a person's dependency on glasses or contact lenses.
It does this by permanently changing the shape of the cornea (the delicate clear covering on the front of the eye).
In order to see clearly, the eye's cornea and lens must bend (refract) light rays properly, so that images are focused on the retina. If the light rays aren't clearly focused on the retina, the images you see are blurry. This blurriness is referred to as a "refractive error", and it is caused by an imperfectly shaped eyeball, cornea, or lens.
LASIK eye surgery (LASIK stands for laser in situ keratomileusis) involves the use of an Excimer Laser (an ultraviolet laser) to precisely remove corneal tissue, and thereby to correct the shape for better focusing.
LASIK eye surgery is performed most often on people who have myopia (nearsightedness), which means that they only clearly see nearby objects; anything far away is blurry, but is also used in cases of hyperopia (farsightedness), and astigmatism (misshapen cornea).
Since 1998, Lasik eye surgery has been performed on millions of patients in the US, and is the most popular treatment in refractive eye surgery.
There is lots of vital information about Lasik eye surgery on our website - for further details, please click on any page link in our link bar above.