I'm hoping someone can help me with this. I have strabismus (crossed eyes) from birth and I have always switch from eye to eye depending on where I look. The problem is, in the last two years eyes my left eye has been getting weaker and more crossed. In the last few months, it became so crossed that I haven't been able to switch to it. I can only use my right eye now, and I cannot move my left eye from its crossed position no matter where I look! So I appear severely cross eyed at all times. It crosses less if I am well rested, but still not enough to see anything. And if I'm tired it crosses so much you can't see it.

I'm worried that this will be perminent and I will lose the vision I had in my left eye. I have no idea if it has gotten weaker because it is too crossed for me to see with it and I can't move it. I saw an eye doctor about three months ago and he told me to have surgery. Only I cannot afford surgery because I'm in college and insurance doesn't cover it because it is considered "cosmetic".

Does anyone know if this will make me lose the vision in my left eye? I do plan to have surgery after I finish college, but I'm worried that by then I might be blind in that eye. Thanks for your help..

Natalia: Some posters on this forum have said it might be possible to get insurance coverage for strabismus surgery if your doctor says it's vital for your sight, and not cosmetic. This certainly seems to apply to you. I think there is a very real danger of any loss of sight in the bad eye to be permanent. What you could do is try patching the good eye for a few hours a day when you don't have to read or go out (if that is possible). Did the doctor say anything about using prisms? The best strab doctors are pediatric ophthalmologists. I think you should get a doctor who will insist to the insurance company that surgery is necessary to save your sight.

Good luck.
Torre

I've had 5 strabismus surgeries, starting around 9 months old and the most recent coming 4 1/2 years ago during my sophomore year of college. I would check again with the insurance company because clearly it is not cosmetic (they covered mine), but necessary for adequate vision. I had "lost" vision in my right eye because it was so far turned out (prior to surgery) that my brain was not registering any messages from that eye (as this would interfere with our natural inclination for binocular vision). Once I had my surgery the vision in that eye returned, but with a catch...I now see two of everything because my brain is unable to superimpose the 2 images after having "turned off" the right eye for so long. It was really annoying for a while, but now I am used to my double vision and the way I look at it, I'd rather see two of everything than none! Just think, I get to see my friends and family twice as much as anyone else I know=)

And I'll add a few more things to this post....I've tried patches, prisms, occluder contacts, and contacts (which I normally wear anyway for my vision) with an incorrect prescription in one eye and the correct script in the other in hope that my brain would again "turn off" the right eye and I could return to single vision. My docs (who specialized in ped. opthamology as someone suggested earlier) seemed confident that "turning off" an eye is not permanent but that vision in that eye can be restored with vision therapy.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I'd just like to thank everyone for all the advice... its been about a year since my "strabismus/blind in one eye?" post. Unfortunatly, I was so busy between work, school and bills in the last year to get the whole insurance thing worked out. I finally saw an eye doctor again last week... turns out that I'm now almost completely blind in my left eye. The insurence company tells me that surgery would be cosmetic and I really really want it because my eyes is horribly crossed. Does anyone know if there are any other options?

I'm not familiar with health insurance, living in the great white utopia to the north, but on the strab forum I used to read, the doctor always insisted that straightening a person's eye was not cosmetic. I got the impression that the doctor could insist on the insurance company paying for it by claiming that it was medically necessary.
To answer your other question, the surgery probably won't improve the sight in the amblyopic eye to any great extent.

Good luck.
Torre