Concern over diverging lazy eye? (Surgery suggested)

[atomicgirl]

All my life I have had a lazy left eye. I never had any problems with it until very recently. It seems as if starting a few years ago this eye startd diverging away from the center. I don't understand why it started doing that-- it started happening in my mid 30s (I'm now 38) when my entire life I never had an issue with it.

At any rate, recently an eye doctor recommended cosmetic surgery to fix it, and the best reassurance he could give me was to say that there could be an "85%" success rate, with a "chance" that the eyeball might not look right after surgery (yes, he actually said that). I really don't like those odds at all and because it would be the first major surgery I would ever have in my life, I'm terrified.

Do I have options outside of surgery to fix this problem? And why would my eye start to diverge after so many years? Does that mean it's getting weaker?

[atomicgirl]

So is surgery my only option to fix this?

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

No, the physiology of the aging as it ages is causing the eyes to diverge.

Dr. O.