Alternative Approaches to Treating Lazy Eye and Strabismus
Today I want to address a parent's concerns about their four-year-old daughter, Julie, who has been diagnosed with farsightedness and lazy eye. The parent has been advised by an eye doctor to have Julie wear glasses full time and consider eye muscle surgery. I want to offer an alternative perspective that emphasizes the malleability of a child's visual system and the potential for improvement through non-invasive treatments. Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com. If you have any questions, submit them to [email protected] or you can now text me! Text ‘Join’ to 1-844-932-1291 to join the community and ask your questions! SUMMARY KEYWORDS eyes, lazy eye, glasses, visual, system, learning, exercises, vision, podcast, prescription, muscle, surgery, eyedrops, bilateral, brain, focusing, today, cranial vault, child, body 00:06 Hey everybody, it's Dr. Sam, I'd like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. If you want to get in touch with me with questions, you can email me at [email protected]. And you can always text me your questions at 1-844-932-1291. I would like to let you know about my new membership program. This is going to offer members new information on how to improve their vision and wellness. So you will get access to articles, video, blogs, podcasts, and webinars. Also a live q&a with me. And all of this information will empower you to make informed decisions about your vision, and your health. So to sign up to go to my website, drsamberne.com. And you can see the details there. All right now on to the show. 01:36 Hey, everybody, welcome to the program, doing a little urban broadcasting today. So I'm in downtown Santa Fe, actually, my old office is just over there. I closed that office in 2010. But this is a very sweet part of Santa Fe, it's on the west side, pretty quiet and easy going. So I thought I would stop and take a question from a parent is very concerned about a four year old daughter Julie. So Julie has been diagnosed with farsightedness and lazy eye and she's got an eye turning in. And her eye doctor said that she needs to wear these glasses full time, mom sent me the prescriptions about a plus six. And he also said that she only has about three more years to be able to improve the lazy eye. And he wants to schedule her for eye muscle surgery. Because the only way to fix this I turn is with eye muscle surgery. Well, of course, she is appalled by this. She wants other opinions. And so she's known me a long time. And so I wanted to give my point of view. So first thing I want to say is that with kids, their visual system is very malleable, very plastic in the sense that it's versatile, it's changeable. And when you start putting glasses on children are doing things like surgery. There's even a technique where you can use eyedrops that can actually reduce a lazy eye. When you do all these invasive treatments, what ends up happening is it basically reinforces the problem. You know, the eyes are the only part of the brain that are outside the cranial vault. And since the eyes are brain tissue, especially in children, it's a great opportunity to improve one's vision by doing physical therapy exercises, because what you're doing there is you're creating new pathways, new ways for the child to use their visual system in the midst of using both eyes together. So with the glasses prescription, you know the way glasses are prescribed is that the doctor is going to put in eyedrops that paralyze the focusing muscles. We call this dilating eyedrops. And once you do that, you have lost the opportunity to be able to measure the organic focusing flexibility of the visual system. And the reason is, is because those muscles are paralyzed because of the ey...