Exophoria - surgery complications related to flying

I have had this condition all my life.  I am 55 yrs. old now and am having headaches at night, tension in my neck and generally feel exhausted by early evening, could this be caused by exophoria?.  I thought I might need a stronger prescription (I use reading glasses with a 1.75 lense, also had ones with a prism - which I don't like to use - they are very heavy).  My eye Dr. is suggesting that I have eye surgery, if I want, to correct this problem. I have problems tracking but he found that I do have fusion when looking at the red and green dots, but it does take a few moments to make that happen.  He told me when I was 35 yrs old that I was too old to have this done, so I figured I would have to live it.  At that time, I was able to cope as I have all my life with it.  My questions is - would there be any complications from this surgery, how long would I have to be out of work (I'm a flight attendant) and would flying cause any problems after surgery?   I sometimes average 4 flights a day and approximately 8 - 10 flights a week.


This discussion is related to Exophoria.

[Joan M Pernoud, MD]

I doubt the headache is related to exotropia unless reading is associated with the headache.

Complication rate with eye muscle surgery is low and achieving improvement is high.
I expect that medically you could resume work after about 5 days although sometimes it may feel strange for your eyes to be better aligned so there is a chance it could be longer. Flying will be no problem.