The earlier amblyopia treatment is started, the faster and more permanent the results are. There is no definitive scientific data regarding the latest age at which treatment can be started. In patients who have not had the chance to receive any treatment before, treatment can be tried until the young age of puberty if the doctor deems it appropriate.

The most important thing I have learned throughout my years of work is not to speculate on how long a child will need glasses. Children under the age of five have an average of 1-2 diopters of hyperopia, which is normal. On average, hyperopia continues to increase slightly until the age of 7, and then it begins to decline. Between the age of 7 and the end of the growth spurt (around age 16), hyperopia in a child decreases by an average of 1.5 diopters. This is all the information we have, but it is based on averages – not just averages – and not on what is expected. Some children experience more hyperopia as they grow, and some less. I have followed patients who were 5 diopters (a large amount) hyperopia at one year of age and 9 diopters (a very large amount) hyperopia as they become adults, as well as patients who were 1.5 diopters hyperopia at a very young age and who remained exactly the same 10-15 years later. Finally, I have seen patients who had 6 diopters of hyperopia in childhood, but it completely regressed by the time they reached adulthood. Such children are the exception, as a general rule, if a child has more than 3 diopters of hyperopia, it is highly probable that they will continue to wear glasses. If they have less than 2 diopters of hyperopia, it is highly probable that they will no longer need to wear glasses.

A tendency to be lazy eye can often run in families. Even if no one in your family has been diagnosed with lazy eye except your son, your other children are at increased risk of developing strabismus or lazy eye. Even if your daughter looks normal, she may have amblyopia in her eye. In this case, she should be examined to determine the problem in her eye.

Glasses, patching and eye muscle surgery are treatments for different aspects of strabismus. If the eyes are misaligned due to a focusing problem (hyperopia), patching or surgery will not address the cause of the strabismus and will not cure the problem. If amblyopia is present, neither glasses nor surgery will correct the level of vision.

Your doctor's suggestion may be completely appropriate. Don't think that your daughter's outward deviation is only in her left eye. Think of it this way: her eyes are not looking in the same direction and her eyes are outward. But when she looks at you, she has to use either her right or her left eye. On the other hand, she is not looking at you with her other eye. If your daughter's right eye is dominant (like your right hand is better coordinated than your left), when she has to make a choice, she will always choose to look with her right eye. As a result, you will only see her left eye deviating. All you have to do is make her look at you with her left eye (perhaps by covering her right eye with your hand) and you will most likely see her right eye deviating as much as her left eye. You will never see her left eye deviating on its own because when she has to choose one eye or the other, she will never choose her left eye.

There is no single answer to this question because the answer varies depending on the type of strabismus your child has, your child's age, whether the strabismus is fixed, how long it has been around (shorter is better), whether the vision in each eye is good (better vision is also better), any accompanying systemic diseases, and the experience of the surgeon managing the treatment. Appropriate timing of surgery and amblyopia treatment will be in your best interest. You should ask your eye doctor for the numbers specific to your child's specific problem.

This varies from case to case. If the initial surgical result is clearly unsatisfactory and nonsurgical treatments (glasses, patching, medications) do not improve the results, additional surgery may be required within 6-8 weeks after the initial surgery. Alternatively, the eyes may be straight for years after surgery and then strabismus may occur again. Over the years, an existing form of strabismus may spontaneously change to another form. In this case, treatment can be directed according to the newly formed problem.

This frequently asked question reveals a very confusing situation regarding amblyopia. The correction in amblyopia that we are talking about is that vision is better than before with the best available glasses. In other words, vision is no longer lazy. However, the glasses numbers required are only a function of the size and shape of the eye. Depending on how the eye grows and how its shape changes, the lens number that will properly correct the refractive error of the amblyopic eye may not change (or may increase) even though the eye's best visual acuity improves.

No! All the information given above regarding the age at which amblyopia can be treated relates to the age at which the first treatment was started. If amblyopia has been successfully treated in the past and then relapses, the previous best vision can be achieved again with occlusion treatment at almost any age.

Your doctor has advised you to be cautious as appropriate. It can be a real tragedy for a person with amblyopia to have their good eye damaged. Most eye damage is not necessarily in high-risk situations like close-contact sports. Most of it is caused by simple accidents around the home. Glasses protect the eye from damage. I understand that people don't want to bother with glasses that aren't necessary for better vision, but protection with glasses is a very good idea.

Glasses, patching, and eye muscle surgery address different aspects of your daughter’s problem and are not interchangeable. If she has an underlying refractive error (nearsightedness, hyperopia, or astigmatism), patching will not work. It is like trying to force someone to look through a dirty, smudged window and assume they can see clearly outside. Similarly, using glasses alone, without patching, will not help with the problem of ‘suppression’. If the child patches her eye, then simply correcting the optical distortion (the glasses bring the image into sharp focus on the retina) may not cause the lazy eye to wake up immediately. Eye muscle surgery will realign the eyes but will not correct the lazy eye’s vision.

No! The aim of the treatment is to ensure that your child sees equally well in both eyes. When this happens, since the vision is equally good in both eyes, he will see just as well with his right eye as with his left eye. You will then notice that the deviation is equal in both eyes, the aim being for half of the deviation to be in the right and half in the left eye. Even before you start patching, if he prefers to look with his left eye, his right eye will be squinting. Your child will never do this on his own without patching treatment, because he cannot see well with his right eye. In other words, it is better to have both eyes squinting from time to time than to have one eye squinting all the time.

The level of pain varies from person to person according to each person's pain threshold, so this question can only be answered based on the experiences of most people. In general, discomfort after strabismus surgery is mainly caused by a burning and stinging sensation.

More than pain, there is a feeling of something stuck in your eye. Therefore, painkillers are either not needed at all or a simple painkiller can be given for 1-2 days.

Strabismus treatment aims to provide both functional and aesthetic improvement in patients. The aesthetic improvement achieved is of critical importance in the psychological and social life of the person. For these reasons, strabismus treatment should be performed regardless of age. There is no upper age limit for strabismus surgery.