r/Strabismus

My daughter is 12 years old. We have seen a few doctors that aren't sure how to proceed.

My daughter has:

• Accommodative insufficiency

• Alternating exotropia(left eye glass out with 45 diopter)

• horizonal Binocular Vision Disorder/Functional Vergence Dysfunction(only when she brings in the left eye to be straight and only in the distance)

• Fusion with defective stereopsis

With 45 prism diopter intermittent large-angle exotropia with a high frequency of manifestation and a right eye fixation preference.

We are on the waiting list for a surgical consultation in a few months.

What else can I do to help my daughter while we wait for a consultation with the surgeon. The consultation is still six months away. Should I try to find a different surgeon to get in sooner?

So I’ve had my appointment with orthoptics on Friday and I’ve gone from a total of 3 prisms to 27 prisms and I’ve had a fresnel lens added to my left lens as this is my worse/drifting eye. The optician (?) seemed to be pretty uninterested and uninformed. I have some questions…

Does a fresnel prism fix the squint or just fix my vision? They seemed to think it will help but I’m not convinced. If i try and put another pair of glasses on without the lens, my double vision is considerably worse.

I was offered one stick on lens but what happens when I need to wear my prescription sunglasses? Or contact lenses?

How often is long enough to wear them? They look so ridiculous, that I’m never going to be able to wear these to work or when going out? My vision is impaired by the lens as it’s blurry/lined and gets dirty, is hard to clean.

aesthetically, the lens they have cut is all jagged and doesn’t fit my glasses lens properly, it looks awful. You can see the uneven edges of it.

I’m feeling pretty down about it all. I explained all of the issues I’ve been experiencing but it seemed they were only interested in fitting the lens and getting me out the door. UK NHS btw if that makes a difference!

I have my surgery in 4 days and when did it look okay so that people wont ask what happened to you

What was something you didnt know and surprised you going in for surgery even after you seen people’s experiences before

Could you put in the drops yourself im 16 and idk i like being independent and im not that close with my family.

Do you wake up first and then your relatives come in the room? Or do you wake up with them just there

and im also going to a different country by plane 9 days after, that i really didnt have a choice in this tbh so obv going to the airport carries risks like getting an eye infection especially because of how sensitive it is after surgery so i might just wear that shield they give you

I had strabismus surgery as a child. I always had checkups with my optometrist and felt my eyes worsening over the years (more intermittent drifting). He would tell me I’m just tired and wouldn’t recommend re-referral to a specialist at that point.

Later on, I again reinforced how much more drifting I was having even when not tired. He prescribed me distance glasses with a 1.0 base out prism.

Recently, a covering optometrist referred me to an ophthalmologist. I am scheduled for surgery this year, at my pre-op appointment the orthoptist was HORRIFIED that I had base out prisms.

Apparently since I have mostly exotropia/exophoria the base out prisms are the opposite direction and wearing the glasses just makes me work harder to converge my eyes.

They still recommend surgery but I just can’t believe Ive been wearing the wrong prescription for 5 years. Why would an optometrist make such a dumb mistake? Im worried it just made everything worse for the long term… Reassuringly they said that it was such a tiny prism that it was effectively not doing much but also not helping.

TLDR: How bad is it that I have been wearing 1.0 base out prisms for 5 years when I have exotropia/exophoria?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 27-year-old male with intermittent alternating exotropia.

My situation is a bit specific:

• Distance deviation: 30 PD
• Near deviation: 15 PD
• Left eye drifts outward in normal relaxed daily life.
• If I consciously focus, my eyes appear almost perfectly aligned.
• I have no double vision.
• Vision is good (Right eye 6/6, Left eye 6/9, sometimes 6/6).
• I can voluntarily control the deviation for short periods.

Interestingly, if I intentionally switch fixation to my left eye, my right eye can drift outward (alternating exotropia), but this does not happen in my normal daily life.

I've had three surgical opinions:

• Two strabismus surgeons recommended left eye only:
  • Left Medial Rectus Resection (5 mm)
  • Left Lateral Rectus Recession (7 mm)
• One surgeon recommended one muscle in each eye (bilateral surgery).

The two-surgeon consensus is making me lean toward unilateral surgery.

Instead of getting my license on my 16th birthday like many people do, I spent it in recovery from my second strabismus surgery, which had complications that would give me intermittent double vision and ruin any chance I had at working depth perception.

I’m now 23 and I’ve been terrified of driving ever since, but I spent the last year facing my fears and learning. Today I passed the test on my first try! (Barely, though.) Living in a car-centric area, my world has just gotten so much more accessible.

If you are in the same situation or just considering learning to drive, take it slow! I took much longer than the average person to become even somewhat comfortable on the road. I probably won’t drive independently for a while. But it’s so worth it, even if it’s scary!!!

Hi guys! I've been in this relationship with a guy I met on the apps for 6 months and we only met once! At the date it seemed he was nervous, always walking ahead of me, the date was a walk in the park, never taking his sunglasses, at one point I even said "look at me", the selfies he sends me are always from up, but yesterday he sent me one from a different angle and he seemed to have strabismus. Now i m wondering can this be the reason he never comes to meet me?

I am both amblyopic (drifting outwards but very slightly) and severely myopic (-18) in my left eye. That eye looks way bigger than the other one. Sort of bulging out, I think? I'm not sure actually. I don't know if it's caused by the amblyopia/myopia or something else.. It's visible in my childhood photos as well, pictures where i was only 2-3 years old. However, no doctors have commented on it. I feel extremely self conscious and i really struggle making eye contact. The difference is huge. Anyone else with this issue?

I’m being admitted to the hospital today for strabismus surgery on both eyes under general anesthesia. My left eye turns inward, and while I’m hopeful, I’m also pretty nervous.😥😬
General anesthesia isn’t new to me—I had surgery for multiple leg fractures several months ago—so that part doesn’t worry me too much.
What I’m most anxious about is double vision. I know it can happen after strabismus surgery, and I’m worried about the possibility that my eyes become straight but the double vision doesn’t go away.
For those of you who have had strabismus surgery as adults:
Did you experience double vision afterward?
If you did, how long did it last?
Did your brain eventually adapt, or did you need additional treatment?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thanks!

Hello all, I recently had an eye doctors appointment. It was around June 15 or 16th. After my appointment was completed I asked the doctor for a surgery referral immediately after we finished. She agreed and told me I would be hearing back from the place that could do the surgery soon for consult. My consult is eight months away. It is the first week of March. I'm wondering does/did anybody else have a similar wait time. I'm just trying to ease my mind. I was really hoping that I could at least get a consult by the end of the year, but I have to wait eight months and honestly, I'm pretty bummed about it. I'm wondering if anybody else had a long wait time for consult and decided to schedule an early appointment with a different doctor. Or should I just wait out the eight months?

The biggest thing for me is waiting a whole eight months and potentially not being approved for the surgery versus waiting 2-4 months for the consultation and getting a no.
I don't know I was just trying to weigh my options. Get some feedback on what I should do or having a lot of anxiety about this whole consultation and surgery thing so I'm hoping for some good feedback.

Hi all,

Strabismus runs in my family. I had a few surgeries as a baby, I believe, and had another as an adult which went really well, and my eyes look largely aligned now - but were pretty bad until this adult surgery.

I've just had a baby. Wondering if there's anything I can do in these first few months to improve his odds? Make sure I expose him to lots of different objects at different distances? Plenty of indoor and outside time? Reading to him?

Basically I guess I'm asking is there any evidence for anything I can do to help mitigate the chances of the baby having strabismus, or minimising the extent of it?

For the record I'm going to book an appointment with the same specialist who did my recent surgery but she's suggested waiting until he's 3 months old.