Lazy eye question.?

Question

I had a cataract when I was young. After the surgery I was legally blind with 20/400 vision. After the surgery we tried patching, and it did not help. A couple of years ago, my vision in my bad eye improved to 20/200. My eye doctor said that my vision was most likely at it's peak. Well, this year it's 20/100. I was wondering if patching at this age (16) would help improve they eye further to where corrective lens would help it.

Answer 1

You need to put that question to a good ophthalmologist. Improving the refractive error in the eye is one thing. But vision is more complex than that. It also involves nerves along the optic pathway and the area in the brain responsible for vision. Are these pathways still intact after years of non-use?

Answer 2

Hello, I am a Certified Opht. Tech.
It was always thought that patching the good eye only worked up until about age 11. Recent studies and literature have come out saying that the age is now older....possibly 18. With patching you will most likely never achieve 20/20 but to me any improvement is good. If you would like to try patching studies show that only a couple hours a day will do the trick....as long as you are actually using the bad eye. So when you patch your good eye watch TV or try and read. People hate this because it is hard since the vision is poor. But you must think of it like you are teaching your bad eye to see.

Also, you should treat your self as if you have one eye. We call this "one-eyed precautions" This means you must always wear safety glasses or some sort of eye protection when doing anything at all that could possible injure your good eye. If you good eye ever gets injured then you are left with only the bad eye and not seeing well at all. so please take CARE of your good eye too!