I Dont Need Glasses

Amblyopia (Lazy Eyes)

Amblyopia is what we commonly referred to as lazy eyes and it cannot be corrected with spectacles or contact lenses. Amblyopia is caused when the brain uses one eye more than the other. Because one of the eye is not used, clear vision does not develop in that particular eye.

Children learned to use both eyes together in the first few months of life. Their brains has the ability to take images coming in from both their eyes and “medge” them into one. This is called “binocularity,” or normal two-eyed vision.

Children who have a lazy eye did not learn that. At an early age, the brain only takes in image coming from one eye and blocked the other. The blocking of image coming from one eye is called suppression and this causes the sharpness of vision not having the chance to develop normally. How poor is the vision will depend on how early the brain turned the eye off.

A lazy eye may be inherited and it is not always easily spotted. A child may not even be aware that one of his vision is blurred. If the eye conditon is so slight that the eyes does not have an obvious misalignment, parents may not even notice. Many children go undiagnosed until they have their eyes examined at the eye doctor’s office at a later age. Without good vision, a child’s ability to learn about the world becomes more difficult. Amblyopia can causes blindness. Therefore, early detection and correction is therefore important. Amblyopia is best treated before 4 years old.

To correct amblyopia, there are a few treatments.

1) Patching

The ‘blurry’ eye is being forced to work but covering the eyes with good vision for 2 to 8 hours a day over certain period of time, from 3 months to a year. Vision of the ‘blurry’ eye improves.

2) Patching with Surgery

In addition to a patching regimen, eye surgeons sometime recommend surgery for the crossed/wandering eye. Unfortunately, eye surgery does nothing to restore normal two-eyed vision which is a learned process of the brain. Surgery simply makes the eyes appear normal but not a visual cure. The brain has to correct the improper habits which caused the misalignment problem to begin with, Most children who have undergone surgery for a crossed eye still suppress one eye full time. In order for the problem to be truly corrected, the brain must learn not to suppress and be trained to use both eyes together.

3) Vision Therapy

Vision therapy is highly successful in improving a lazy eye. Therapy corrects not only the lazy eye, but it also corrects the brain’s inability to align and use both eyes together. During therapy, the patient’s brain is trained to stop suppressing the lazy eye, the visual pathways from brain to eyes are improved so the patient can keep both eyes aligned, and finally the brain is taught to fuse the images coming in from both eyes for normal vision. The best news is that this can be done at any age. Like Vision therapy also need to patch the clear eye to force the ‘blurry’ eye to work, but for much shorter periods of time. By the end of therapy, the child’s patching time has been eliminated altogether.