There are 6 eye muscles that control your eye movements, two of them move your eyes side to side (lateral and medial rectus), two of them move your eyes vertically up and down (superior and inferior rectus) and two other oblique muscles do a combination of movements including twisting your eyes to keep the image straight as you tilt your head from side to side. They work together in balanced pairs and so by changing the position of the muscles for example, weakening (recessing a muscle) or strengthening (resecting a muscle) we can alter the balance between the muscles and the position of the eyes relative to each other, improving their alignment.
How is squint surgery done?This is done just under the conjunctiva, which is the skin of the eye, and dissolvable stitches are used. Afterwards the eye will be red and feel gritty but this quickly resolves with anti-inflammatory and antibiotic eye drops. There is no cutting of your eyelids so no eyelid scarring and at no point is the eyeball taken out.
Squint surgery usually takes less than an hour and is done under general anaesthesia so you are completely unaware of the procedure. It is a day case procedure so you go home the same day. For some patients we may recommend using adjustable stitches so that we can measure your eyes after the operation and adjust if necessary to get you the best result. |
WHAT ARE THE RISKS?The risks with strabismus surgery are small but include the following:
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