4 Ways to Treat Lazy Eye

1. Patching Up the Problem

Lazy eye, or amblyopia, is an eye disorder wherein one eye gets weaker than the other, resulting in blurred vision and weakened eye muscles and can, in extreme cases, lead to more difficult eye problems. A popular way to treat lazy eye is to have the person wear an eye patch over their good eye for an extended period of time. The patch may be worn for several hours a day or in some cases all day. This may go on for weeks or even months. This helps the weaker eye get stronger by forcing it to do all the work.

2. Liquid Eye Patch

A newer way of reaching the same results as a patch is the use of atropine eye drops placed into the healthy eye. Atropine acts to dilate the pupil and not allow the eye to accommodate for near vision by blocking eye muscle receptors. This forces the lazy eye to compensate for the good eye's inability to focus clearly and thus strengthens it. These drops are usually administered once per day, but studies conducted at Saint Louis University in 2004 have found that atropine drops used even twice per week were as effective as those used daily in helping a person overcome lazy eye.

3. Helping With Corrective Lenses

Corrective lenses to fix either nearsightedness (myopia) or farsightedness (hyperopia) that can be the underlying cause of lazy eye may also be prescribed. Glasses will help with eye misalignment problems as well as focusing problems. There is some argument that corrective lenses may not be enough to overcome lazy eye, as the brain gets used to that eye seeing blurry and does not "see" the clear image the glasses are providing. In many cases, glasses are used in conjunction with eye drops or patches.

4. Your Eye Going Under the Knife

If your lazy eye is caused by a physical problem such as the ocular muscles not working correctly (called strabismus, when the eye looks up, down or to the side instead of looking at the same object the healthy eye is looking at), then surgery may be needed to correct the problem. As this type of surgery only addresses the strabismus and not amblyopia, the lazy eye is not corrected due to the surgery. This surgery is usually done after other methods of treating the lazy eye have not been totally effective. Surgery will correct the movement of the other eye and align them, which will likely help in the treatment of lazy eye, but will not alone correct amblyopia.