Strabismus surgery with amblyopia.

Hello webmd,

I have the eye disease known as amblyopia and a dose of intermittent exotropia to go with it.  My eye sight has recently gotten worse and I fear I may be going blind in the affected eye.  I wear prescription glasses and other than when I am tired, reading something, up late, intensely concentrating or stressed the left eye does not turn outward.  The amblyopia did not develop as a result of the eye turn, I have lived with this condition for much of my life.

I realize that there is no cure for amblyopia at the moment, but am hoping I may be able to get the outward turn corrected.  I had the eye muscle operation done about six years prior to now and the eye has just recently begun to wander again.  My only questions are the following:

- Can I receive the operation even with the amblyopia?
- Is there a chance that undergoing the operation a second time causes the strabismus to worsen?  If so, how great of a chance could that be?

Regards,
mr570

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

1. Yes you can be considered for more surgery however because your amblyopic eye does not see well your eyes do not fuse images together so the success rate is much lower then if your eyes worked together.
2. Surgery is not likely to worse but may not cure, or if they are straight, like last time they may drift out of alignment in coming years.
3. see a pediatric/strabismus ophthalmologist.  Find one near you at www.aao.org

JCH MD

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

1. Yes you can be considered for more surgery however because your amblyopic eye does not see well your eyes do not fuse images together so the success rate is much lower then if your eyes worked together.
2. Surgery is not likely to worse but may not cure, or if they are straight, like last time they may drift out of alignment in coming years.
3. see a pediatric/strabismus ophthalmologist.  Find one near you at www.aao.org

JCH MD

[mr570]

Thank you for the response Dr. Hagan.  Not exactly what I wanted to hear but I guess that's not how life works.  Do you think if I didn't get surgery the eye would worsen and turn out all the time instead of just intermittently?  And when you say "may not cure" do you mean that there may be no effect at all or that the eye will eventually drift out again?