What is a Lazy Eye?

Lazy eye (amblyopia) is a vision condition where a child’s vision is blurry or reduced and cannot be corrected by glasses, contact lenses or eye surgery.

Unfortunately, lazy eye may have no warning signs at all. For this reason, among others, it’s crucial to have your child’s vision checked by a children’s eye doctor. Keep in mind that even if your child cannot read yet, there are special tests that can check their vision to detect lazy eye.

If you think you or your child is contending with a vision issue – like amblyopia – or you simply want to ensure their vision is supporting their living and learning needs, schedule an appointment with a team that specializes in amblyopia and vision therapy near Columbus, Ohio:

Learn about what causes lazy eye, how to fix a lazy eye and – most importantly – that early detection is key by watching this short video by Dr. Wineland:

Let’s talk about amblyopia, or “lazy eye.”

What Causes Lazy Eye?

Most of you have heard about amblyopia, or lazy eye, where one eye is actually not seeing clearly and sharply due to two factors:

The eye can be crossing in or crossing out
– or –
One of the biggest concerns is when there is a high prescription in one eye and a not-so-high prescription in the other eye

How to Fix a Lazy Eye

If we patch the good eye for about 2-3 hours a day with active use, we can recover the vision in the bad eye.

Patching can be done at an early age. The goal is to catch it early – before age 8 – but preferably even younger.

We can catch babies at six months and kids at two, three and four years old who have this condition. We can detect if they have lazy eye or are at a high risk for having lazy eye, and we can use an eye patch to restore vision.

Early Detection of Lazy Eye is Important

The main takeaway is: Early detection is very important. All children should be examined before age one, and then again at age three. Ages four through six are also great ages to get your child examined.

The longer you wait, the less likely it is to have a diagnosis for lazy eye.

Adults can benefit from eye patching, too. Active use of your bad eye, with the patch on your good eye, can help recover vision.

If you’re concerned about lazy eye in your child or yourself, be sure to talk with your eye doctor about it.

There is also medications and special glasses that can be used for amblyopic training.