When Should You Start?
It’s really important to seek lazy eye treatment sooner rather than later as this gives your child the best chance of complete recovery. Check your child’s vision regularly, starting at an early age.
This ensures catching a condition like amblyopia, otherwise known as lazy eye. This condition can be treated successfully so that your child will make a complete recovery.
Lazy eye in children is a serious matter. If it’s not diagnosed early on, then the task of recovery requires greater effort.
One solution : Patching
Patching or the use of an eye patch is probably the best method of treating amblyopia. It’s safe, affordable and effective lazy eye treatment and won’t have any side effects. The doctor will recommend that an eye patch be worn for a specific amount of time.
This may be for several hours a day for several weeks or months. The eye patch will be worn over the good eye, thus forcing the lazy eye to work and communicate with the brain, which is the main problem.
Once the brain can communicate with the eye better and start registering images, your child is well on the way to recovery. To help your child accept the use of an eye patch, you could organize fun events like pirate parties!
You can also engage your child in little exercises and games at home designed to improve the condition. For example, tossing beanbags into containers, catching beanbags or doing crossword puzzles with small print. Even video games are sometimes recommended.
Other Lazy Eye Treatment Options
Depending on how long you’ve had the condition, an eye patch or eye drops may be enough. Eye drops can have side effects, being a drug, but it is also one of the recommended methods of lazy eye treatment.
The use of orthoptics and vision therapy will be for those who have had it for a longer period of time, or for those who had not been diagnosed early enough. This means the patient has to have more in-depth treatment.
Vision therapy is very important for overcoming lazy eye as it incorporates many facets of the proper working of the eye. For example, it will also include training and improvement of eye-brain coordination as well as eye muscle movement.
For certain eye problems, the best and safest method on the path to recovery could be the use of an eye patch. Always consult your eye doctor to determine if a patch should be part of your treatment program.