Eye surgery for squint

[lotsofcheese]

DD is 17 months & has had a noticeable squint since the beginning of the year. It was not present at birth & is continuing to deteriorate despite wearing glasses.

At our last appointment the Opthalmology consultant & orthoptist both mentioned surgery as the best way forward, but were a bit vague about timescales .

Has anyone else been through this? Is there a certain age that is best for surgery? How effective is it? Risks versus benefits?

Anything else to consider? Thank you.

My brother had surgery to correct a squint at 3years (31 years ago) not sure of risks or process my parents had to go through (i remember years of eye patches for 'lazy' eye) but it improved his vision and development no end, he struggles even now with 3D perception but is a paramedic and somehow has a licence to drive very fast good luck with your DD, quiz your consultant to death!

I had a squint operation when I was 8 (32 years ago). Had to wear a patch afterwards but the end result was very good. Cosmetically you'd never know I'd had a squint (DP notices it slightly though if I'm really tired)

I've never had to wear glasses but find things like driving long distanced in the dark tiring on my eyes.

I have a tiny mark on the side of my eye which I didn't even notice until years later (as a teenager doing my make up) which is the scar from have op.

I'm sure the procedure now is even better than 30 years ago. If the squint is not likely to correct itself I'd recommend the operation.

My daughters squint was noticeable from a few months old. Hasn't needed glasses but it was getting worse. Her consultant recommended her having the op before she started school. I noticed when she was about 4 she was tripping up all the time and had difficulty balancing on walls etc when she looked down. She was also putting her head near the table when drawing.

The consultant basically said it was up to me when she had the op. Once I decided she had an appointment for the op within 8 weeks. She was in as a day patient and the whole op took less than 30 mins. Complete success.

my dd had a squint operation aged 4 before she went to school. Her squint was still noticeable even with her glasses on which is why we went for it. It made a big difference and her eyes are much straighter (with her glasses on)

Sorry, just seen the replies now - thanks for all your responses
It sounds like all your DC were much older when they had surgery. DD is only 18 m so I'm guessing they might hold off till later.

I had an operation to correct a squint when I was 2, so 30 years ago.
I remember a lot of patching afterwards and I still have poor vision in the lazy eye, although cosmetically, other people cannot tell I have a lazy eye.

My DD was 2.5 when she had the squint op on both her eyes (last summer). It had been planned since she was 2, just had to wait a few months for an appointment. They don't operate very very young as it's difficult for them to assess how much correction to make, but I'd expect it to be an option for you in the next 6 months or so.

I was very worried about it, but it went fine. She was in and out the same day, had to stay off nursery for about 10 days or so IIRC. Her eyes did go quite disgusting afterwards, all swollen up and yellow but she had antibiotic cream to prevent infections and was OK. She used to have a squint in both eyes, she now has a small residual squint in one eye and is wearing a patch to stop any sight deterioration which is working so far. She also wears glasses.
I think with the op, the earlier the better with regards to developing 'normal' vision - the sooner they can get the turned eye to line up, the sooner the brain starts to interpret the signals from the eye properly. The pathways are pretty set by age 7/8 so squint correction after that age (obviously you are ages away from that) is cosmetic only and won't help improve the eyesight.

Thank you Lizzie, that's really helpful.

I wish they would just make a decision. The consultant (a locum) isn't very communicative; I tend to get more information from the orthoptist.

I feel her vision is impacting her development, as she's not walking yet & this may be a factor in it.

She's only had 2-3 hospital appts. So perhaps they want to do a further assessment to be very sure. I guess it must be very hard to assess babies that small clinically & they probably want to have a few assessments confirming the same thing.

I did find we had to ask lots of questions, the surgeon wasn't very communicative at all. I think as it's such a routine operation for them to perform (they do several a day) that they forget what a big deal it seems when it's your baby!
Surgery isn't always the best option, it depends on why the squint occurs I think. My DD had equally developed sight in each eye and both eyes turned in and up so there would have been no point in patching her before the op as there was no 'good' and 'bad' eye.
I guess as your DD is so young, they will just monitor for a few months before deciding - don't forget to make your feelings on the matter known too! We would have gone for squint correction anyway even if it had only been for cosmetic purposes so that's important to think about as well.

As for it affecting development, it really didn't affect my DD at all - because it was there from birth, her brain had only had squinted information to process IYSWIM so that's what it developed to cope with. Obviously she didn't have the same depth perception as we do, as she was only processing info from one eye at a time, but apparently what children like this tend to do is slightly turn their heads when they are looking at something and that gives them enough info. So her brain actually had to re-learn to accept the corrected information after the op. Doing lots of fine motor control practise afterwards (and now we do this when she's patched) seems to help, although your DD is a bit young for this anyway.