Strabismus causes decline of ability to see in the gliding eye that means eye laziness (amblyopy) for children. For adults, double vision comes into being.Normally, both eyes look at the same point. This provides the brain to combine two images and form three dimensional image. Strabismus is the situation which eyes are at incorrect position and look at different points. While one of the eyes looks straight, the other one looks at inward, outward, upward or downward. If one of the eyes looks at a different direction, two different images are conveyed to the brain. Brain disregards the image coming from the eye which is looking at the incorrect direction and only accepts the image coming from the eye which is looking straight. So, the child cannot develop depth feeling.
Children’s Eye Health and Strabismus
What is Strabismus
Strabismus is the inability of eyes to look collateral. While one of the eyes looks straight, the other one looks at inward, outward, upward or downward. Incorrect position may be constant whereas it may only occur when the person looks at specific directions.
Muscles sticking out of the eye provides eye movements. There are 6 muscles in each eye
These muscles move the eyes in harmony providing continual simultaneous focusing. When one or few of these muscles don’t function properly, strabismus comes out.
Reasons of Strabismus
Strabismus does not have one reason. Problematic gestation period, development process of the child and diseases passed may be the factors that lead to strabismus.
Symptoms of Strabismus
The most typical symptom of strabismus is the gliding in eye.
- Pain
- Headache
- Double vision
- Head’s or face’s being turned to one side
Variations of Strabismus
- Strabismus inward (Esotropia)
- Strabismus outward (Exotropia)
- Strabismus upward (Hypertropia)
- Strabismus downward (Hypotropia)
Strabismus Treatment Methods
- Eye Glasses: Some types of strabismus are caused by sight defaults. When the patient starts using eye glasses, strabismus is recovered.
- Closing Treatment: This method is used in case of eye laziness.
- Ortoptical Treatment: It includes exercises by the help of closing, CAM and other special equipments to achieve the ability to see by both eyes and depth feeling.
- Botox Treatment: Parallelism in the eyes can be obtained by injecting botilinum toxin into the muscle which causes gliding but its effect continues approximately 6 months and it is mostly preferred in specific situations like strabismus due to nerve palsy.
- Surgical Intervention: Strabismus operations are executed mostly on the muscles located out of the eyeball. In order to heal strabismus and to provide the parallelism between eyes, the strength of these muscles are increased, decreased or their impact points are changed. Success rate of strabismus surgery is very high, the patient is discharged on the same day and returns to normal life next day.