LASIK for Lazy Eye

Amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, is a vision development disorder in which an eye fails to achieve normal visual acuity, even with prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses. Amblyopia causes reduced vision in an eye because the eye and the brain aren’t working together properly. The affected eye often looks normal, but it’s not being used normally because the brain is favoring the other eye. The lazy eye or amblyopic eye is the weaker or unused eye. Both muscles of the eyes should work together to focus. This is normally the case for those with healthy vision. There is a muscle imbalance in lazy eye that causes the brain to reject the image from the weaker eye that eventually leads to vision loss in that weaker eye. Amblyopia begins during infancy and early childhood. In most cases, only one eye is affected, but in some cases, reduced visual acuity can occur in both eyes. It is estimated that about 2-3% of the U.S. population has some degree of amblyopia. Most experts agree that amblyopia must be treated in childhood for the treatment to be effective. If lazy eye is detected early in life and promptly treated, reduced vision can be avoided. But if left untreated, lazy eye can cause severe visual disability in the affected eye, including legal blindness. Once the critical period of vision development (thought to be before age 10) has passed, visual improvement from amblyopia treatment is limited. LASIK can correct the refractive error of both your eyes, but if one of your eyes is amblyopic, it will remain blurred in comparison to your “good,” healthy eye. LASIK eye surgery can only improve vision but it cannot alter the brain’s incapacity to see. The LASIK procedure cannot do anything about the transmission of images to the brain from the retinal cells. The LASIK procedure can only ensure that the image in the eye is correctly positioned on the retina by reducing astigmatism, nearsightedness or farsightedness. LASIK eye surgery in Rapid City is a safe and effective procedure that Dr. Wright has used to help thousands of people see clearly without the help of contacts or glasses. For more information about LASIK for lazy eye, please contact Great Plains Eye Specialistsat 605-718-5123 or wrightvisioncenter.com.]]>