Laser eye surgery is not used in the treatment of strabismus, because the treatment requires intervention in the muscles around the eye, and the laser procedure does not offer such possibilities. But.
What is strabismus
Strabismus (strabismus) is the uneven alignment of the eyeballs, which induces various types of disorders of monocular and binocular vision. So it’s not just a disfiguring alignment of the eyes, but primarily a strabismic disease that can even cause vision loss.
Visual impairment due to strabismus
In strabismus-induced vision loss, impressions from the guiding (non-strabismic) eye dominate over those from the strabismic eye.
Muscular imbalances involving the oculomotor muscles usually lead to strabismus, while positioning the eye abnormally causes the image to be formed not in the central area of the retina, but more peripherally – in an area where the density of photoreceptors is much lower. The brain remembers, fixes this imperfect image, and even when the strabismus is cured, this image remembered by the brain appears to us as the only possible one.
Visual impairment cannot be cured by laser surgery methods.
Double vision vs. strabismus
Double vision (diplopia) can be one-eyed or two-eyed. A person suffering from this disorder sees the observed object twice. This is due to misalignment of the eyeballs. Strabismus can be the cause of diplopia.
If double vision occurs as a result of misalignment of the eyes, laser eye surgery can be useful in treating this misalignment by adjusting one eye to focus better at a distance and the other to focus better up close. A procedure known as monovision can then be performed.
Equally important, although laser eye surgery has not developed methods to treat strabismus itself, it can address accompanying strabismic visual defects. Strabismus in itself does not disqualify for laser correction of refractive defects (nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism), but individualized and in-depth diagnosis is necessary.
