Lazy eye is quite common. It is very likely we must have heard about it one way or the other.  Lazy eye generally refers to the drifting motion of one eye which is commonly associated with misalignment. In more critical situations, a lazy eye may be triggered by disorder in vision, as frequently seen in the loss of binocular vision. Most times, lazy eye, if uncorrected, could cause one to find it challenging to measure depth with their eyes – consequently leading to a loss of vision in his weaker eye.

Let us check out some facts concerning lazy eye.

What causes lazy eye?

One of the most notorious causes of lazy eye is the condition termed amblyopia. Amblyopia commonly refers to a condition where the connection between the eye and the brain suffers a developmental problem. In this situation, the brain habitually neglects information as well as signals emanating from the eyes.

Another condition that can also trigger lazy eye is strabismus. In other circumstances, strabismus can be commonly referred to as crossed eyes. Here there is a misalignment of the eyes owing to a difficulty in communication between surrounding eye muscles. The reality is that on one hand, amblyopia can trigger strabismus and on the reverse, strabismus can also trigger amblyopia.

In a more typical situation, the deteriorating brain-eye miscommunication as it is typified by a lazy eye is caused by strabismus. In such situations, the two eyes send contrasting images to the brain. This is more prevalent in the developmental phase of the eyes. Thus, we see the malfunction in the pairing of the muscles of the eyes. So how does the brain resolve the contrast in images? It simply ignores one of the contrasting images. This way images from one of the eyes are neglected resulting in the consequent underdevelopment of that corresponding section of the brain.

Amblyopia as aforementioned can also be caused when one of your eyes is suffering pronounced farsightedness (otherwise known as astigmatism or refractive error) more than the other. This also would result in a mismatch in communication between the eyes and the brain. Thus the brain ends up similarly preferring images from one eye, causing a kind of ocular imbalance. Lazy eye can yet be caused by childhood cataracts, or when you have cloudy lenses as well as physical abnormalities. The next thing that would come to your mind is the resolution of this discomfiting eye condition.

Treatment of lazy eye

To treat lazy eye, you must extensively treat the causative condition called amblyopia. This means that one needs to take care of vision problems cutting through cataracts as well as farsightedness or refractive errors. Understandably, getting prescription lenses for either of your eyes (or even both of them) can to a large extent resolve some of these conditions.

In other more critical situations, your eye doctor could opt to block the stronger eye allowing the brain to acclimatize to images and signals from the weaker eye (otherwise termed the amblyopic eye). This is commonly carried out with drops that blur (on a temporary basis) the vision emanating from the stronger eye.