Strabismus, commonly known as “crossed eyes”, is a common eye disease among young children. Many parents believe that strabismus will go away when their children grow up, but this is actually wrong. Strabismus will not only cause harm to the child’s eyes and affect the child’s physical and mental health, but also affect the child’s future vision development.
I. Why does strabismus occur?
1.Regulation theory
The regulation of the eye and the collection of the eye are interrelated, and a certain regulation brings about a corresponding collection. Often, due to the strong reflex of regulation and collection or the use of less or no regulation, the collection force is weakened at the same time, and common internal strabismus and common exotropia are formed.
2.The theory of binocular reflex
Binocular monocularity is a conditioned reflex, if the vision of the two eyes is different during the formation of this conditioned reflex, and one eye vision is impeded by obvious sensory or motor disorders that prevent the function of binocular monocularity, it will produce a state of eye position separation, i.e. strabismus.
3.Anatomical theory
The overdevelopment or underdevelopment of the extraocular muscles of one eye, the abnormal attachment point of the extraocular muscles, the development of the orbit, and the abnormalities of the intraorbital fascia structure can all lead to the imbalance of muscle strength and produce strabismus.
4. Genetic theory
Clinically, it is common that many people in the same family suffer from common strabismus, and strabismus may be related to genetic factors.
Second, the harm of strabismus?
1.Impairment of sensory function
Most strabismus patients are prone to amblyopia and poor vision in the strabismus. Even if the vision of strabismus patients is normal, but when looking at something, due to the skew of one eye, only one eye can focus on the target, the field of vision is far less open than normal people, more importantly, strabismus patients do not have the ability to integrate image and stereo vision, and will be limited in many professions, such as: driving, drawing, fine work, etc.
2, affect the development of the whole body bone
Some strabismus patients, due to the paralysis of the eye muscles, often use some special head positions such as tilted head and side face to overcome the discomfort of looking at things, which is medically called “compensatory head position”. If not treated early, the long-term “compensatory head position” may lead to deformities in the bone development of the whole body, such as scoliosis.
3.Aesthetics
Strabismus seriously affects aesthetics, and children with strabismus are often nicknamed, which inevitably casts a shadow on their mental health and causes their isolation, low self-esteem and abnormal psychology. According to the survey, most children with strabismus are prone to low self-esteem and affect their normal study and friendships.
How to treat strabismus?
There are two ways to treat strabismus: non-surgical treatment and surgical treatment.
Non-surgical treatment
Treatment of strabismus is firstly for amblyopia to promote good vision development in both eyes, and secondly to correct the skewed eye position. The treatment of strabismus includes: wearing glasses, wearing eye shields, and orthoptic training. Eye shields are the main treatment for amblyopia caused by strabismus. Eye muscle surgery involves relaxing (weakening) or shortening (strengthening) one or more of the extraocular muscles in one or both eyes. Mild strabismus can be corrected by wearing prismatic lenses. Orthoptic training can be used as a supplement before and after surgery.
Surgical treatment
The younger the age of strabismus treatment, the better the treatment results. Strabismus surgery is not only to correct the eye position and improve the appearance, but more importantly, to establish binocular vision. The best time for surgery is before 6 to 7 years old. After surgery, binocular vision training is used to enhance and maintain stable stereopsis.