Answers to Your Questions About Strabismus

Strabismus, more commonly known as crossed-eyes, is a vision condition in which your eyes are not properly aligned with each other. For a variety of reasons, one or both of your eyes alternately turn in, out, up or down when looking at objects in the distance, up close or both.

Coordination of your eyes and their ability to work together as a team develops in early childhood. Failure of your eyes (or more precisely, your eye muscles) to coordinate together properly can lead to crossed-eyes. Excessive eye focusing effort in children who are farsighted can also result in crossed-eyes. Crossed-eyes also have a tendency to be hereditary.

Children under six are the ones most affected by crossed-eyes, but it often first appears between birth and age 21 months. It is estimated that up to 6 percent of the population have some type or degree of strabismus. A child will not outgrow crossed-eyes. In fact, the condition may get worse without treatment.

Children with crossed-eyes may initially have double vision. This occurs because both eyes are not focusing on the same object. In an attempt to avoid double vision, the brain will eventually disregard the image from one-eye. In time, the ignored eye will become largely unused. This may result in the development of lazy eye (amblyopia).

Parents may be the first to notice a slight wandering of one or both of the child’s eyes. A comprehensive vision examination by a doctor of optometry is recommended if that happens. Treatment for crossed-eyes can include eyeglasses (regular or bifocal), prisms, vision therapy, and in some cases, surgery. Crossed-eyes can often be corrected with excellent results if detected and treated early.