All About Strabismus (Crossed Eyes)

Treatment for Strabismus in adults usually begins with using glasses or contact lenses to correct vision difficulties that may be causing or aggravating the problem. However, when this type of treatment is not enough, the ophthalmologist may recommend performing eye exercises once a week in the hospital, and daily at home, to improve muscle coordination and help focus better on objects. In most severe cases where it is impossible to correct the Strabismus using glasses and eye exercises, surgical intervention may be necessary to balance the muscles and fix it.

Main causes

• Defects can cause Strabismus in 3 different places:

• Muscles that move the eyes;

• Nerves that transmit information from the brain to the muscles to move them;

• Part of the brain that directs the movement of the eyes.

For this reason, Strabismus can manifest itself in a child, when the problem is related to the lack of development of one of these places. This frequently occurs in cases of Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, for example, or in adults, due to problems like stroke, head trauma, or even a blow to the eye.

Strabismus can be classified into three types:

1. Divergent Strabismus: The eye deviates outward, that is, towards the outside of the face;

2. Convergent Strabismus: when the eye deviates towards the nose;

3. Strabismus Vertical: When the eye drifts up or down;

How is surgery performed?

Generally, surgery for Strabismus is performed under general anesthesia, so that the doctor can cut into the eye muscles to balance forces and align the eye. In most cases, this surgery does not leave a scar, and recovery is relatively quick.

Correction of Strabismus through exercises

Strabismus eye exercises are often recommended to help eyes that are not correctly aligned. These exercises are used to strengthen muscles. In most Strabismus cases, you will get one eye pointing straight in the right direction and one that will “wander” and will not be able to focus entirely. More commonly, this is known as being cross-eyed, and it affects more people than we think. About five per cent of children will grow up with this problem to some degree or another, which can continue into adulthood if things are not done to fix them. There are many things to try to get rid of the problem. Here are some of the eye exercises for Strabismus that you must try.

Close focus exercise

The first of the first eye exercises to treat Strabismus will be to help with close focus. All you need to do to help with this is get your hands on a pencil with some fine print on one side. Now simply focus your eyes on the letter and then gradually bring the pencil towards your nose, while staying focused on it.

After this, take out the pencil again, keeping your focus on the letter. You should try to do this about five times a week and do perhaps a hundred repetitions of each session’s exercise.

Forced focus exercise

The next of the eye exercises to treat Strabismus is a forced focus exercise. That’s where you get special prescription glasses for reading. These have a built-in prism that will make it much more challenging to focus when reading and are therefore intended to strengthen the eyes.

The above are two common natural exercises that you can try to do. Their effectiveness has come under great scrutiny, and it is widely believed that they will have a great effect in helping with vision. However, ophthalmologists at  3 FOR 1 GLASSES may recommend other exercises to complete the treatment at home.

When treatment is not done correctly in childhood, the person can develop amblyopia, in which there is a vision problem in the affected eye, it usually focuses less than the other eye, since the brain produces a mechanism to ignore the image different that comes from this eye. Therefore, treatment should be started after diagnosis, by placing a mask on the healthy eye, to force the brain to use the other eye and develop the muscles on that side.