Procedures. How to damage your eyes

I've put a lot of time into researching laser eye treatment and the modern treatments fall into two main categories. LASIK and Surface ablation.
Lasik surgery is where a flap is cut in the cornea 100 - 180 microns thick to allow access to the corneal tissue for laser ablation. (Ablation - the removal of tissue by vaporization)
Surface ablation, same concept as Lasik but with a different method for getting acces to the corneal tissue. There are 3 main ways. PRK, Lasek and Epi Lasik
PRK: a circular dam is placed on the front of the numbed eyeball and a 20% alcohol solution is applied for approx 30 seconds. This softens the connecting material on the epithelial layer of cells allowing them to be scaped away and discarded. Surface ablation is then performed and a bandage lens is applied and the cells grow back in about 4 days.
Lasek: The eye is prepared in the same way but the layer if folded back before ablation and replaced after. The bandage lens is still needed.
Epi Lasik: Instead of using alcohol to lift the epithelial layer, an oscillating plastic blade is used to separate the layer. this is replaced after ablation. By not using the alcohol, there is less cell damage.

Other treatments:
Wavefront, this is where the laser is programmed to remove a little more of the cornea in specific areas to improve astigmatism and other sight aberrations, some you may not even realise that you have!
Femtosecond laser, this is a new technique for accurately cutting a flap. Used only for Lasik.