Strabismus Treatment
- Misaligned and Point in Different Directions?
- Misaligned Only When Daydreaming or Tired?
- Misaligned When Trying to Focus to See Clearly?
- Having Double Vision, Causing You to Tilt Your Head to Focus?
Appointment
Let our eye specialist and trained optometrists conduct a detailed eye check to determine if you have strabismus or not, as well as its severity.
Left untreated, strabismus will lead to worsening vision and other conditions such as lazy eye. Hence, our prompt and personalized treatments will help realign your eyes properly and regain clear vision.
On top of vision issues caused by strabismus, the appearance of misaligned eyes can be distressing to patients as well. With the right treatment, you can fix both visual and appearance issues effectively all at one go.
Ophthalmologist Dr Leo Seo Wei is an eye doctor in Singapore with over 20 years of experience treating adult and paediatric strabismus effectively. Though strabismus can sometimes occur in adults, it is usually seen in children. With Dr Leo also being a Paediatric Ophthalmologist, you can rest assured that your little ones will receive attentive, interactive and specialized eye care.
Our eye clinic in Singapore is equipped with modern medical technology that can diagnose and treat strabismus in a safe and effective manner.
In milder cases of strabismus, non-medical treatments such as spectacles, eye patches and lifestyle changes may be sufficient to strengthen the affected (and weaker) eye and treat the refractive error, thus correcting the misalignment.
In more serious cases of strabismus, the muscles that move the eye will be operated on, either to loosen or tighten them. This changes the pull of the eye, thus correcting the misalignment.
- There are many ways strabismus can be caused. Sometimes it is due to a disorder in the part of the brain that controls eye muscles and movements. In order for the eyes to move together, the muscles in both eyes must be balanced and coordinated.
- Other times, it can be caused by refractive errors, focusing problems, tumours or nerve injuries.
- Aligned Eyes: Both eyes are able to aim at the same spot. The brain then combines both images into one single 3D image. This is what gives us normal depth perception.
- Misaligned Eyes: When one eye is misaligned, two different pictures are now transmitted to the brain. In a child, this is especially harmful because the formative brain will then learn to ignore the image received from the misaligned eye, and sees only the image from the aligned eye. This causes the child to lose depth perception.
- When people develop strabismus in adulthood, they tend to develop double vision instead, because their brains have already learned to receive images from both eyes and is not able to ignore the image transmitted from the misaligned eye.
- Young children often do not see double vision – they tend to lose depth perception instead.
- Cerebral Palsy
- Down Syndrome
- Hydrocephalus
- Brain Tumours
- Prematurity
- Apart from loss of depth perception, it can also lead to amblyopia – Lazy Eye. This is when vision in the weaker (misaligned) eye continues to deteriorate, because the brain keeps favouring the stronger (aligned) eye.
- Depth perception and peripheral vision may be affected
- Eyestrain and headaches may occur
- One may start turning his or her head to see in certain directions and to avoid double vision
- Usually, no. You or your child should start treatment as soon as symptoms show up, because if not, the problem may continue into adulthood and even worsen.
- It is never too late to restore normal alignment to the eyes!
- Not at all! This is typically an outpatient procedure, and a safe and established one at that
- It simply loosens or tightens the muscles that control the eye, thus correcting the alignment
- Do note that this is usually as a last resort – milder cases usually only require glasses or eye patches to treat