Procedure For Curing Cross-eye

At the Squint Clinic: All efforts are made to befriend the child. Whatever the age, the examination of the cross-eyes does not involve any elaborate procedures, and a child as young as two months is easily examined for a squint by torchlight. Jingling keys, pleasant-sounding toys and attractive pictures are also helpful. The back of the eye is then examined in a darkroom by dilating the pupils with special medicines. This is the only examination where, if the child does not cooperate, an injection for sleep is given and the examination is completed. Every case is an individual one and the surgeon chalks out the line of treatment by the following procedures, individually or collectively.

Provision of Spectacles: The squinting child, in many cases has weak eyesight, either in one eye or in both eyes. This can be improved with spectacle lenses. This may sound dreadful to some parents-they wonder how a small child of two years can wear glasses. But a child will take to glasses if he finds that he sees better with them. The child’s eyesight continues to improve as long as spectacles are used. It is heartening that the eyes of around 25 per cent of cross-eyed children tend to become normal with the provision of glasses alone. Glasses should essentially have round frames so that the child does not look above them. About 50 per cent children do show partial improvement after using glasses. The residual 25 per cent do not improve with glasses. This happens in those born witl1 a squint.

Eye Exercises: For five or six years old children, who will cooperate with the eye surgeon, exercises on a special machine (syneptophore major) are arranged. Here the child is taught to use both-eyes simultaneously to see one single object. Attractive pictures, slides and absorbing games are made use of to keep the child interested and happy. These exercises for muscular imbalance (latent squint), however, cannot be carried out unless the child cooperates. Hence, they are not useful for very small children.

Forced Use (Occlusion) of the Normal Eye: The cross-eye is made to look straight by closing the other e which is normal. By so doing the cross-eye is stimulated to come out of darkness and laziness, and begins to see things. Once the eye begins to see, it begins to look straight. The treatment is carried out if there is an improvement in sight over a period of 30 days or so. If the vision does not improve the treatment is stopped. By prolonged stretch of this treatment, the normal eye can get lazy.