Hi, I’m Dr. Julie and in today’s segment of Ask Dr. Julie, I’m going to talk about a question that we get all the time. We probably answer this question three to four times a month. And that is: “If I’ve had multiple surgeries on my eyes for strabismus, can vision therapy still help me?”
Yes it can. It does become more tricky the more surgeries you have had. The reason why is these muscles are small. They’re not huge muscles like the muscles in your arm or leg, they are small muscles. This means there is the possibility of what we call contracture, where scar tissue forms and the muscles will contract together, making it more difficult for them to move. So freedom of movement after multiple surgeries is a potential problem. So we have to watch for that.
But assuming that that’s not the issue, then yes, vision therapy can still help you. We can still train the brain even after all of the confusion of multiple surgeries, meaning cutting or lengthening, whatever type of procedure was done. Vision therapy can still train the brain to know better about what it’s doing to align the eyes and how it’s directing the muscles.
So for more information about what we do with strabismus and talking about how we don’t use surgery, but we functionally correct and developmentally correct the visual problems the brain is having signaling the eyes to line up properly, you can go to our website at visionforlifeworks.com. Certainly if you or someone you know has this condition, well then, call us to find out how we can help you. Our phone number is 618-288-1489.