All You Need To Know About Strabismus

Strabismus is a condition that normally affects children, but occasionally affects adults as well. Commonly called crossed eyes, strabismus is a condition that causes misalignment of the eyes, such as when one looks straight ahead and the other looks off to the side. Strabismus is more than just a cosmetic condition and must be treated, especially when it occurs in children. Regardless of the age of the patient, however, diagnosing and plotting the best course of treatment needs to be done as soon as possible. If you’re an adult with strabismus, do not let people tell you that you can't do anything about it. At Karns Vision Center in Knoxville, TN, we can help.

Strabismus

Why You Need to Treat Strabismus Quickly

When one eye is misaligned with the other, your brain processes the information it receives in an awkward way, resulting in double vision. In young children, the brain can train itself to ignore the vision from the misaligned eye, but that results in the brain and that eye losing the ability to communicate with each other. In other words, untreated strabismus in children can lead to blindness in the affected eye.

In adults, the situation is different and much more annoying when the strabismus is new. Your brain is already used to receiving vision from both eyes, so if one eye becomes misaligned (an accident can do this), all of a sudden you have double-vision. When adults leave this untreated and just try to block the misaligned eye from seeing, the eye's ability to see and transmit information to the brain can start to atrophy.

Even if the strabismus started long ago and you haven't treated it, there may be something an ophthalmologist or optometrist can do. Technology and knowledge of the condition has improved over the years.

Is Surgery the Only Option?

Surgery isn't the only option to treat strabismus, although it's certainly one of the more commonly used methods. It may be possible to correct the condition, especially in children, with special glasses, eye exercises, and medical injections into muscles around the eye. But sometimes the eye muscle itself can't be helped by anything except physically adjusting it through surgery.

Get Strabismus Checked Now!

Karns Vision Center in Knoxville, TN can help. Our eye doctor can discuss treatment methods and potential outcomes as well as perform other optometry services with you for all kinds of eye and vision issues. Make an appointment now by calling (865) 247-7715.

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