Squint is also called as Strabismus. If it happened to an adult then it will be called as adult Strabismus or adult squint. It is actually a condition when the eyeball of the patient is no correctly aligned but point to some different directions, especially towards the nose or ear. It may also point up or down. This problem is quite common and is generally found in four out of 100 adults.1
What are the Causes of Squint in Adults?
Generally, it is seen that squint occurs during the childhood days. However, you can also develop squint during adulthood because of certain medical problems for example –
- Diabetes
- Thyroid
- Brain tumors
- Head trauma
- Strokes
- Myasthenia gravis.
Sometimes the condition of squint is also caused after cataract surgery or retinal surgery due to misalignment of eyes. However, this can also happen due to damage of eye muscles at the time of surgery.
Symptoms of Squint
When a patient develops squint they will experience the following symptoms:
- Fatigue in eye
- Double vision
- Blurred images
- Pulling sensation around the eyes
- Difficulty in reading
- Loss of depth perception.
Correcting Squint in Adults: How is Squint Treated?
There are many people in the world who are born with a squint or have developed it at some later stage of their life. Many of them think that having squint is their permanent condition which can never be corrected. But this is not true – you can actually straighten the condition of squint at any age. The following are some ways by which it becomes possible to correct the condition of your squint:
Eye Muscles Exercise:
Eye muscles exercise is very useful in the treatment of squint especially in case of convergence insufficiency. Convergence insufficiency is the condition when the patient feels a problem while reading or doing any close work. While doing any close work such as reading books, inserting thread in a needle, working in front of a computer screen, etc.it is required to focus on both the eye inward on the close objects that is books, thread, needle and computer monitor. The inward focusing of the eye and its coordinated movement is a kind of eye muscles exercise which is convergence. Eye muscles exercise is certainly very helpful in correcting the condition of the squint.
Prism Eyeglasses for Correcting a Squint:
When a patient feels mild double vision due to squint condition he should use eyeglass with prisms. A prism comes up with a wedge-shaped lens that blends or refracts the ray of light and can provide a clear vision. When a person having squint wears a prism eyeglass what happens is that it realigns the images together and thus the patient can view only one image instead of the double images. You can wear the prism eyeglass either on outside of the glass frames or you can manufacture it directly into the lens itself. However, prism eyeglass cannot correct a severe case of double vision or if the double vision is caused due to weak or tight muscles.
Eye Muscles Surgery to Correct a Squint:
The condition of squint is commonly corrected with the help of eye muscles surgery. Generally, squint happened when the muscles that surround the eye is either too weak or too stiff. With the help of eye muscles surgery, it becomes possible to loosen, tighten as well as reposition the eye. Eye muscles surgery helps to improve eye alignment and eliminate or reduce the double vision. It can also reduce eye fatigue. But the patient may sometimes feel pain or discomfort after doing eye muscles surgery but you can get relief with medication such as panadol, paracetamol, codeine, hydroquinone, etc. However, eye muscles surgery involves various risks that include allergic reaction, infection, reduced vision, double vision, etc.
Conclusion
Many adults having squints cannot focus properly or they may sometime need to turn their head for focusing on something. Apart from that when such persons look at the people they cannot make direct eye contact with them. Due to these problems people having squint have to encounter many negative impacts on employment as well as social opportunities. It also makes them feel awkward in various social events. But it is possible to treat this condition of squint at any stage of life with eye muscles exercise, using eye prism glass or by eye muscles surgery. Thus persons having squint are no more required to live with discomforts that are caused by squints as they can easily get relieved from the discomfort caused by a squint.
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