Does Eye Patching Really Work for Lazy Eye??

[Anonymous]

I had lazy eye/amblyopia as child. I did the patch for a while. My dad would draw a picture on it every day (flower, turtle, whatever I requested) to help make it more palatable. I had the surgery at age 3 (I guess the patching wasn't enough) and have been fine for many decades.

I do have problems with depth perception, but no one ever told me about this as a child and I thought I just sucked at gym class. It was kind of demoralizing.

After reading this thread, I did a little research on amblyopia, and see that the patch is needed for just two hours a day. The site also mentioned that a drop could be used in the good eye to blur it temporarily to help the lazy eye get stronger rather than patching.

[Anonymous]

I posted earlier and am wondering that every single other kid had surgery. My DD has seen 3 different eye doctors during her childhood and none have recommended surgery despite very significant crossing (without glasses). Were all of your kids eyes still crossing with glasses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier and am wondering that every single other kid had surgery. My DD has seen 3 different eye doctors during her childhood and none have recommended surgery despite very significant crossing (without glasses). Were all of your kids eyes still crossing with glasses?

There are two kinds of strabismus. If it’s present from birth, they will be a candidate for surgery. That was me. My son was followed from a few months old because of my history and didn’t have congenital strabismus. However, accommodative strabismus appeared around 2. The ophthalmologist said his was a different type from mine and they do not perform surgery for it. We did the patch for many years and he does still wear glasses. Without glasses his eyes do sometimes appear misaligned. When I asked the doctor about it recently he reiterated that my son was not a surgical candidate and that when he is 21 he might want LASIK. If his vision is corrected, his eyes should be aligned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted earlier and am wondering that every single other kid had surgery. My DD has seen 3 different eye doctors during her childhood and none have recommended surgery despite very significant crossing (without glasses). Were all of your kids eyes still crossing with glasses?

There are two kinds of strabismus. If it’s present from birth, they will be a candidate for surgery. That was me. My son was followed from a few months old because of my history and didn’t have congenital strabismus. However, accommodative strabismus appeared around 2. The ophthalmologist said his was a different type from mine and they do not perform surgery for it. We did the patch for many years and he does still wear glasses. Without glasses his eyes do sometimes appear misaligned. When I asked the doctor about it recently he reiterated that my son was not a surgical candidate and that when he is 21 he might want LASIK. If his vision is corrected, his eyes should be aligned.

Thank you. This sounds exactly like my daughter except her eyes are almost 100% crossed without glasses. While there are much bigger problems in the word, I wish surgical correction were a good choice for a better look without glasses.

[Anonymous]

DH had the surgery twice as a kid around 2-4 yrs old. He still has trouble with that eye, even with the corrective surgery. The muscle got weaker over time again.

Started with drops in DS's good eye to make his weak eye work. We did that for about 6 weeks when he was 3.5. It helped for a while. Fastforward to age 6. Had to patch the good eye. Patched for 6-8 hours per day initially. Over the next year or so, we slowly decreased amount of time per day that he patched the good eye and then decreased the number of days he patched until he no longer wore the patch. We just had our last visit (age 10 is when the eyes supposedly stabilize) with an ophthalmologist, where he said that he was good to go and there was no need for him to return. At 10 yrs old, DS still doesn't have full depth perception but can compensate for the most part. As of right now, he doesn't need glasses but will likely get them because DH and I both wear glasses and have for years. Dealing with this is a serious time and money investment with no guarantees with or without surgery/patching.

[Anonymous]

My daughter only had amblyopia due to an astigmatism and patching totally worked for her, but it's taken years. Her weak eye moved from 20/100 to 20/25 over the course of two years of patching and glasses and now we're on maintenance and tapering. She only ever patched 2 hours a day.

I have been told that strabismus can result from untreated amblyopia but that never happened to my daughter.

She started the patching and glasses together when she was just under 3.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read all of the posts, but this was me in Kindergarten 40 years ago! I had amblyopia and got a patch. Wore it for maybe 2 years and my eye was fixed. Only have minor vision issues in my adult years due to aging and computers. I'm not sure if any technologies have improved treatment in the last 40 years?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter only had amblyopia due to an astigmatism and patching totally worked for her, but it's taken years. Her weak eye moved from 20/100 to 20/25 over the course of two years of patching and glasses and now we're on maintenance and tapering. She only ever patched 2 hours a day.

I have been told that strabismus can result from untreated amblyopia but that never happened to my daughter.

She started the patching and glasses together when she was just under 3.

And just to be clear, her corrected vision in the weak eye moved from 20/100 to 20/25.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read all of the posts, but this was me in Kindergarten 40 years ago! I had amblyopia and got a patch. Wore it for maybe 2 years and my eye was fixed. Only have minor vision issues in my adult years due to aging and computers. I'm not sure if any technologies have improved treatment in the last 40 years?!

The technology to detect ambylopia much earlier has improved. Treatment is largely unchanged. Eye drops are now an option for some and that probably didn't exist 40 years ago, however.