Amblyopia and crossed eyes

My daughter (who is 4yrs old) was diagnosed with amblyopia in her left eye in September.  Since then we have been patching her right eye daily and wearing glasses.  At our last eye check up her vision in the left eye had improved to the point of 20/25 which we were feeling really good about.  However, last week when she removed the patch in the afternoon as she always does, her eyes crossed.  We have never seen her eyes cross before and when we checked with her doctor he said that this was normal and not something to be concerned about...keep patching as usual.  This doesn't seem right to me....What is causing her eyes to cross?  It seems like it takes her eyes an hour or two to get back to normal and during that time she sees double.  It is particularly crossed the further away she looks.  Is this normal?  What should I do?

[Forum-OD-MP]

okay...

#1 she should be using the patch only with the glasses on.  hopefully thats what you're doing

#2 whatever crossing eyes she has WITHOUT the glasses on makes no difference whatsoever.  was her eye crossed with her glasses ON or OFF?  if the glasses were OFF when she was crossed, it doesnt mean anything.

if the eye crossed with the glasses ON it may or may not mean anything.  that would depends on whether your doc knows that she is an "alternating esotrope" or not.  i suspect your doc knows.  but just to make you feel better and to reiterate:

- if the eye crossed with glasses off it means NOTHING
- if the eye crossed with the glasses ON it may or may not mean anything.

[ashtay]

Okay...thank you that was helpful and reassuring.  As it turns out she didn't have her glasses on today at school....I can not remember if she had her glasses on or off the other time that I noticed her eyes crossed.  So can you explain why her eyes cross when she takes off the patch and doesn't have the glasses on?  Thank you!  I am so happy to get an understandable reponse.

[Ag-i-doc]

see response in new thread above