my son has weakness in his left eye?

Question

I went to the eye doctor the other day with my 6 yr old son and found out that his left eye is under developed causing him to lose vision in his eye. The doctor has given him glasses and is going to have me patch his right eye for 2 hours every day inorder to strengthen stimulation in the left. Im looking or suggestions of activites if anyone knows that will help build eye stimulation. The doctor suggested buying him a lite brite and using a tooth pick and also coloring o's in the phone book, i was just looking to see if anyone could help me with other things has well.

Answer 1

It sounds like your son has Strabismus or Lazy Eye.
This is caused because the affected eye does not work with the other eye. . . generally because of a weak muscle.
Caught in time,patching and Atropine Drops for dilating the good eye forces the muscle of the affected eye to work harder to focus.
Glasses is also a method when patching and dilating doesn't help so well.
If none of the above help,it could be possible to have to have surgery to help the weak muscle of the affected eye.
Because the eyes work together,when one is not working as it should,the brain knows that it is getting mixed signals and will "shut down" the affected eye and in the process the
vision of that eye is deminished.
Doing the fine work that the Dr is suggesting is a good way to get the eye to focus harder and hopefully strengthen the affected muscle of the affected eye.
Buy your son some tiny beads and have him thread them.
Sometimes the beads with shine and facets will make it harder to see the hole to thread and this would probably not only be a good exercise for his eyes but alot more fun than the phone book idea.
Get him some elastic to thread the beads on and he can make the cute little friendship bracelets to his friends while doing work that will help his eye.

Answer 2

i had the same problem growing up unfortunately it was to late for me to get it fixed. so now my brain has pretty much shut down my left eye. i can still see out of it but there is nothing doctor can do to fix it. what your eye doctor suggested is great. i would say try and find anything that will make you use your eyes maybe a wheres waldo book but hold the book farther away so it would be hard to focus in on it.