A runaway eye is one of the most common eye diseases in children. Not only does this ailment add to beauty, it can cause serious vision problems and complicate education. Therefore, strabismus must be treated. Neglected strabismus can even result in amblyopia. But if treated early enough, strabismus can be completely cured.
The upper age limit for non-surgical struggle withstrabismusis 10 years. At this age, the process of shaping binocular vision is over and starting treatment does not help much. Therefore, see your child ineyesand to be absolutely sure go to an ophthalmologist with a few-year-old, even if you have no objections to his eyes - you can also ask the pediatrician to have his eyes checked during a he alth check, which is done every 2 years. In most cases, however, squint is easy to spot.
Strabismus is hard to miss
The child looks straight ahead, but the eye turns towards the nose or cheek. The most common reason is the malfunctioning of the muscles responsible for the eye movements, caused by e.g.visual impairment . For this reason, when looking at an object or person, only one eye aligns correctly - the other "deviates" from the optical axis at an angle. The image seen by the child is blurry, it can also be double, because squinting makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to develop the so-called fusion, the process by which two images perceived by the eyes can be fused into one. Strabismus can lead to monocular amblyopia because the image formed in the wrong place in the retina is 'suppressed' to avoid double vision. There are three basic types of strabismus:
accompanying- the squinting eye has a constant deviation angle, but moves in line with the he althy eye. Depending on the angle of the deviation, such a strabismus can be convergent, divergent, oblique, upwards or downwards. If it occurs in one eye or the other, it is called alternating strabismus. It occurs when a child uses one eye or the other alternately to avoid double vision;
hidden- squinting occurs when the eyes are tired, otherwise it does not show symptoms;
paralytic- it occurs as a result of damage to the nerve supplying the oculomotor muscle (its main symptom is double vision).
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Until 2-3. month of life is the norm, it should not be ignored, but a test should be performed to exclude congenital eye defects or acquired diseases.
What to do when a child has squint?
There is only one way - see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible, preferably in a strabismus clinic. Before your visit, be sure to remember the time your child has been squinting, check which eye is missing (and if both of them, more often) and whether the strabismus has appeared suddenly or gradually. Take photos from different periods to the meeting so that the doctor can judge when the problem started. A he alth booklet will also be useful, because the ophthalmologist will certainly ask about the course of childbirth, past diseases and injuries (especially ENT and neurological injuries). The diagnosis will be made only after thorough research.
Research necessary to determine the type of strabismus
Basic examination is the assessment of visual acuity, for which special charts are used (for toddlers there are ones with pictures instead of numbers and letters). It will also be necessary to examine the fundus - it makes it possible to recognize some serious causes of squint, such as eye cancer. In order to perform the examination, you need to use atropine, which dilates the pupils. The doctor will probably also do the so-called cover test - it consists in alternately covering the eyes with a veil or dark glass and allows you to assess which eye is squinting. He will also test the angle of strabismus and binocular vision, assess the ability to spatial vision. All these tests are necessary to determine the type of strabismus, its cause and select the appropriate treatment.
Strabismus treatment
Depends on the cause that caused the squint, it usually lasts for several years. If it is caused by a visual impairment, the child must wear properly selected corrective lenses to eliminate or reduce the defect. Sometimes doctors recommend covering the he althy eye. Treatment is often supported by orthoptic exercises (eye muscle training in a strabismus treatment clinic). Sometimes surgery is required to restore muscle balance, and if the cause of squinting is nerve damage, the treatment is not done by an ophthalmologist but by a neurologist.
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