“How is strabismus treated?”
My son is 6 years old and has strabismus. How can this be treated?
11 Answers
OphthalmologistStrabismus
Glasses or possible eye muscle surgery.
Strabismus means the muscles of the two eyes don't work well together and one or both eyes turns in or out, or up or down. It's like two horses pulling an old-fashioned carriage--they need to both be going in the same direction to move forward. In strabismus, one of the horses is trying to go the wrong way. The problem for us is that the brain will suppress the turned eye and it will become lazy.
Depending on the amount of crossing, strabismus is treated with patching, glasses or surgery. It is important that children with strabismus be seen as early as possible to prevent loss of vision, because the eye will be become "lazy" if it isn't corrected and realigned. Please see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible, because after age 7 it is less likely that vision can be restored if it has been lost.
Depending on the amount of crossing, strabismus is treated with patching, glasses or surgery. It is important that children with strabismus be seen as early as possible to prevent loss of vision, because the eye will be become "lazy" if it isn't corrected and realigned. Please see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible, because after age 7 it is less likely that vision can be restored if it has been lost.
There are different ways of treating it: from simple things like glasses and as complex as surgery.
Treatment for Strabismus is determined by the amount of eye turn. If minimal glasses with prisms are tried to bring the images seen from each eye together to coincide. If a greater amount is found, surgery on any of the six muscles of either eye , sometimes both, are operated upon to allow the child to see the same object with each eye in the same central part of the retina.
He should be seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist and make sure it is "just" strabismus and not anything underlying that is causing the eye misalignment that needs to be addressed.
The strabismus is usually treated surgically
The strabismus is usually treated surgically
With surgery on the eye muscles to realign the eyes. It is done as an out patient, ie, same day surgery and quite safe
Depending on the type and severity, strabismus is corrected with either glasses, glasses with prisms, or eye muscle surgery.
If your little guy’s strabismus is caused by an uncorrected optical error (farsightedness), a pair of glasses may control it. Otherwise, it may take muscle surgery to fix the strabismus. The muscles controlling the alignment of the eyes may be effectively lengthened or shortened to bring the eyes into proper alignment. Often, it is necessary to operate on both eyes, even though only one appears to be misaligned. It is important to fix the misalignment, one way or the other as soon as possible to prevent amblyopia or “lazy” eye as this may cause permanently reduced vision. Although surgery may seem drastic for such a little person, it is safe and effective when done by a qualified Pediatric Ophthalmologist.
G. N. Pomerance, M.D.
G. N. Pomerance, M.D.
Strabismus needs to be correctly diagnosed and excluded from pseudo strabismus. Intracellular lesions need to be excluded first. Correction of refractive errors, prismatic glasses and surgical correction are treatment options. Your doctor will guide you.
Go to an ophthalmologist, preferably a pediatric ophthalmology specialist, for evaluation and treatment.
Dennis Breene
Ophthalmologist
Strabismus is a general diagnosis for eyes that don't line up properly. This can occur spontaneously at birth or later in childhood, or be secondary to other problems occurring in children and adults. A thorough examination by an ophthalmologist skilled in strabismus is advised to determine the exact diagnosis. Treatments can range from glasses to prisms to surgery and in children often include patching an eye, or other treatments for amblyopia. Amblyopia is the failure to develop or maintain normal vision during the early years of life for various reasons. Failure to treat amblyopia by age seven or eight can result in a permanent reduction of vision. As your child is six years old, it is imperative that this evaluation be done promptly, as treatment for amblyopia, is less successful the older the child gets and likely to be permanent if not treated by around age seven or eight.
