amblyopia

[Alisha80]

My boyfriend is 28-years old. He has amblyopia.  He is from Peru and has been told basically his whole life that "there is nothing that can be done." As our relationship progresses, I can't help but want to help him research ways we can retain his vision.  We don't want him to go blind and we are willing to learn more about what we can do to help him. Are there new treatments or ways he can exercise his lazy eye at his age? Please let me know your thoughts.

[John C Hagan]

Hello Alisha80 the above message from justinstb is pretty much true. Amblyopia is not a progressive disease like glaucoma and will not progress to complete blindness.

There are some forms of amblyopia (aneisometropia) in which the two eyes have very different glasses prescriptions. The amblyopic eye may see better with a strong RX but because of the difference in the eye glass thickness they glasses cannot be worn. This type of amblyopia can sometimes be helped with contact lens, or a refractive operation like LASIK or hyperopic CK.

Any children sired by this may will have a 20% chance of having amblopia and/or strabismus.

JCH III MD

[justinstb]

i also have amblyopia in my left eye,
nothing can be done once you hit about age 7,
if it is caught early enough patching of the good eye can restore vision,
the most important thing i have found is to take extra care to protect the good eye ,safety glasses for
any work involving tools and i also wear a full visor when playing hockey,
on the plus side my good eye is 20/15 and im in my 40's.

Dont worry your boyfriend will be fine as long as he takes extra care with his good eye,