Find
out If You Have One of These Common Conditions Above
What
is it?
You may
notice sometimes when you talk to someone with amblyopia, one of his/her
eyes does not look at you. This disease is most commonly referred
to as "lazy eye," and it is a condition in which the vision
in one eye does not fully develop during childhood. When a
baby grows, it has to learn how to focus its vision just like it learns
to talk. Some babies do not fully learn how to manipulate both of
their eyes, and therefore, develop a lazy eye. The child may have
one eye that seems to stay still while the other can move around.
Normally only one eye is affected, which is called the amblyopic eye.
It'll strike 2 or 3 out of 100 people. Left untreated, it can lead
to serious and permanent vision loss and/or loss of depth perception
(seeing in 3 dimension).
What
causes it?
Amblyopia
is usually inherited. It is caused by having misaligned eyes
during childhood. The crossed eye will shut off and the child will
only want to use the better eye. Eyes that have unequal focus,
or refractive error, is another cause. This is when each eye does
not have the same depth perception as the other. A third cause is
from cloudiness in an eye, or cataract,
which makes the patient use the clearer eye only. This is the most
severe form of amblyopia.
Symptoms
1.
one
eye barely moves, if at all, when the other looks around
2.
one
eye is constantly looking toward the nose or toward the ear (this
problem is called strabismus)
Treatment
Because
this disease affects mainly children, it is not easy to diagnose.
The child may not be aware that one eye is stronger than the other.
To treat it, doctors make the child use the weaker eye by giving him/her
a patch to cover the stronger eye. Wearing the patch varies
from patient to patient, and may take weeks, months, or even years.
Glasses are
also prescribed to help after patching is implemented. In some cases,
the strong eye may have to be blurred to match up with the weaker
eye with drops that paralyze the focusing of the stronger eye, so
that the child can use both eyes evenly. Doctors may also perform
surgery on the eye muscles by shortening or lengthening it
to provide for better eye pull and turning. Because a child will not
like to wear an eye patch, it is to the best interest of the parents
and family members to encourage the child and approach it in a supportive
manner. In other cases, if the cause is a cataract, surgery may be
the best solution.
