I've had lazy eye since the beginning. I dont remember what age but my parents had me with an Opthamologist & wearing a patch as a kid but I don't remember why I stopped - if it got corrected and came back or not fixed. I still have it. I just got my eyes checked for new glasses and my vision in the right is like 20/25 corrected but in the left the best he could do was much less than that (I forgot the number, 20/60 maybe). He was explaining that my brain is not processing the signal from both optic nerves together so that my better eye isn't helping my bad one. I guess that as I grew up the good eye just got stronger and stronger and is almost perfect while the other one wandered....

Is there a treatment procedure for adults for lazy eye that will improve the vision? Patches don't work for adults, do they? I'm not keen on wearing one anyway. I have read on here that there is no cure. Naturally I'm quite disappointed that as an adult I probably wont be able to engage in hobbies that require near perfect vision AND as a kid I had to endure torture from the other kids in the schoolyard due to the patch, which didn't help in the long run anyway :( :(

And the Dr. told me that lasik or laser-correction won't get my eyes any better than the glasses do.

Nothing you can do about it now. An yes, corrective surgery won't help either.

What happens to a lazy eye later in life? Is that one going to deteriorate faster than normal with age?

That sucks. I guess this is a reminder to all parents, get your kids eyes evaluated E-A-R-L-Y. I wish my eye doc when I was a kid would have suggested something different than a patch to my mom when it wasn't working.

Patching is probably the best way to treat a lazy eye. The reason it sometimes doesn't help is because the parents don't patch as often as they're supposed to. Like everything else, its all about compliance. It also depends on your age. How young were you when you wore the patch?

Bruce, from what you said you have both amblyopia (lazy eye) and strabismus (wandering eye). They are both a brain thing, not an eye thing. That is to say, there is nothing physiologically wrong with your bad eye--your brain just doesn't pay attention to it. Amblyopia is often a result of strabismus. When one eye wanders, the info coming to the brain is so out of whack that the brain shuts down one eye. If your bad eye is indeed 20/60 that's not all that bad, compared to a lot of others with amblyopia. Do you have binocular vision, depth perception?
The consensus is indeed that nothing can be done as an adult; however, there is an optometrist who does not agree and claims some success with people of all ages so I give out his name. Merrill D. Bowan, Developmental Optometrist.

That being said, patching is not practical for an adult. It would have to be intensive and you just couldn't function, or work. If you were in the position where you could stay home for months wearing a patch for the good part of each day, maybe.
I can't answer your question about the eye getting worse with time. As I said, it's not the eye itself, but whether the brain blocks out ever more of the sight, I do not know. It doesn't appear to once it gets to a certain point.

I believe I was in the age range of 6 to 8, but I dont remember how long the patching went on for or how many hours of the day it was on. I do know that I didn't wear glasses all the time until I was about 17. My vision was not perfect, I probably needed the glasses earlier but my parents & eye doc did not tell me to. I had glasses but didn't use them all the time. I wasn't able to see as good as the other kids in school, who knows maybe that was part of some of the issues I had that played a part in my adult development. Any time a kid feels "different" than his peers its going to leave an effect especially during the formative years.

Well Bruce I'm in your situation. I had a lazy eye which wandered, which wasn't corrected until I was 17. It doesn't wander any more but I have very poor vision in it, which affects my hand/eye coordination and my depth perception. I don't think anything can be done about it now, I guess we just have to accept it. I too wore patches, and glasses, and absolutely sucked at ball sports which made me lack confidence during PE lessons. I guess now schools would be made aware if someone had a visual disability like that - perhaps they'd be excused from the humiliation of sports, but no one's life's perfect and I guess it's 'character building'. My middle son had a vertical squint which was fixed when he was two. He is excellent and sports and has excellent hand/eye coordination. Lucky him!!

I too have lazy eye for about 42 years now. The patch never worked and surgery was not an option back in the late 50's. I cannot use both eyes together so you can imagine how difficult it was to use them seperately. Thankfully if I use my left eye to speak to people, the eyes seem to look straight. If I use the right eye, I look cross-eyed. I was told that I can have surgery to correct it but at my age, I might as well leave it as it is as I'm used to it. I also have a stigmatisim (sp.?) in both eyes.

If I use the right eye, I look cross-eyed. I was told that I can have surgery to correct it but at my age, I might as well leave it as it is as I'm used to it.

so if I understand it correctly, adult surgery is really only cosmetic to improve the crossed-eye appearance but it doesn't improve vision acuity.

I only know that they can fix it so that my eyes focus together. Right now I use them independently.

The blurriness from my astimatism is another problem.

Bruce surgery didn't improve my vision. I don't know for sure but I think it needs to be corrected fairly early on - like before 10. as I said though, I don't know for sure.

Bruce, the surgery is on the eye muscles to align the eyes. It does not affect acuity, although it can cure double vision if that is present. If it is done early in life it can prevent amblyopia from developing.