April 2, 2020 - EyeClarity Blog
Esotropia is a misalignment in the eyes. They’re not working together and the brain either sees double or shuts off one of the eyes to avoid seeing double. Some causes include poor fetal movement, head trauma, illness, and gestation challenges with birth (like forceps or C-section deliveries and birth traumas). It can lead to things like poor early motor development, and if a child doesn’t go through the crawling stages properly, it can inhibit visual coordination.
Two treatment modalities are surgery and vision therapy. When you do surgery, the doctor cuts one of the muscles to momentarily straighten the eye. The problem with this method is that it creates permanent confusion in the brain because unless you tell the brain what you are doing to the eyes, the eye is going to revert to the esotropia because the brain and the eye are not in sync. The success rate of strabismus surgery is very low, and if there is a problem, the surgeon will often do the surgery two or three times. This is not something I recommend and I think vision therapy is a much better approach. So, what is vision therapy?
Vision therapy is a form of physical therapy with exercises designed to help people foster more effective communication between the brain and the eyes. The brain directs the eye muscles, so when we are seeing, it’s really through the brain. Vision therapy offers an approach where a person can relearn how to get the two eyes to work together. In children, it’s important to integrate the entire body into vision therapy, which is why we do a lot of activities that include gross motor bilateral therapy such as visually guided and directed movements through obstacle courses. Things like craniosacral and color therapy can also be very effective in encouraging a person to learn how to use both eyes together. This is an organic approach, rather than surgery which is only treating the symptoms.