Exotropia is a common type of strabismus. If the eye deviates outward, it is known as exotropia. Outward deviation of the eye only for some time is called as intermittent exotropia. In many cases, the turn of the eye might be visible only when the person is ill, tired, anxious or during stressful situations. This article gives information about intermittent exotropia.
Advantages of Intermittent Exotropia
- When the eye turns for some of the time, the visual system still has more opportunities to develop.
- This means as far as the eyes are straight for sometime, both the eyes and the brain will develop normal functioning.
- It provides good possibilities of developing improved vision in the future.
Disadvantages of Exotropia Eye
- When the person has intermittent eye turn, the outside observers may think that the person is lazy, day dreaming or not paying attention.
- As the observer do not know there is a physical problem, he may feel uncomfortable and mistrustful about the person with eye turn.
- This happens because intermittent eye turn person gives poor eye contact.
Diagnosis
It can also be difficult for the eye doctor to diagnose the intermittent eye turn.
Treatment
- It is not needed to carry out immediate treatment for intermittent eye turn. Since the eyes and brain work properly for sometime, time is on your side.
- Early surgery can disturb the ability of the brain that helps in fusion and can cause amblyopia (permanent reduction in vision).
- Treatment options consists of patching, Vision Therapy, eye glasses and very rarely, surgery.
- The most successful treatment is vision therapy. It has successful rates of about 78% when compared to surgery of 48%.
- Surgery is recommended as the last resort and only if the vision therapy as not been successful.
- Although prisms are effective to alleviate these exotropia, they may cause adaptation problems. Hence, vision therapy is more effective than using prisms.
