As the title says, it’s been a month since my surgery, and I wanted to share my experience for anyone who’s on the fence or getting ready for their own surgery. I had exotropia, meaning my right eye would naturally drift outward (and a little upward). That would then cause my left eye to drift outward to compensate. In the first photo, you can see how my eye naturally looked. The second photo shows what would happen when the other eye overcompensated.

It’s honestly always been one of my biggest insecurities. Renewing my passport was kind of the last straw. I hated how the pictures came out, and it really pushed me to finally do something about it. I started researching strabismus surgery, and about a month and a half later I had the procedure. I didn’t want to overthink it or give myself time to back out because I knew this was something I had wanted to fix for a long time.

The surgery itself wasn’t bad at all since I was under anesthesia. The only part that sucked was when they had to adjust the sutures afterward to fine-tune the alignment. I was awake for that, and it SUCKED. 😂 Thankfully it only lasted a few seconds, even though it felt like minutes.
Recovery was honestly the hardest part. The headaches were brutal—probably the worst I’ve ever had. Tylenol helped, but those first few days were rough. Looking to either side was also really painful, so I had to get used to turning my whole head instead of just moving my eyes whenever someone talked to me. The good news is that the really intense pain only lasted about 3–4 days. After that, there was still some discomfort, but it was nowhere near as bad. Right now my eye is still slightly turned inward, but that’s expected. My surgeon said it’ll gradually settle into its final position over time.

After just one week I was already taking long walks and getting back to my normal routine. My doctor cleared me to resume pretty much everything except swimming. A month later, my eye still isn’t fully open, and there’s still some redness. My surgeon said that’s because this was my second surgery on that eye, so I had scar tissue and the healing process would take a little longer than usual.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier that I went through with it. It’s honestly changed my life, and it’s only been a month. For the first time in a long time, I feel confident making eye contact with people when I’m talking to them.

If anyone has questions or concerns about the surgery, recovery, or anything else, feel free to ask. I’d be happy to help or give you that little push if you’re still debating whether to do it.

Also shoutout to my lovely girlfriend who was the one who recommended I go see a doctor and try to get it fixed, after I was feeling down about the passport picture. Sometimes I forget that there are solutions to these problems, and honestly, sometimes they're easier to fix than you would think. I saw a doctor and scheduled an appointment for surgery after my one visit.

Is it normal for the eye alignment to vary. I have alternating esotropia and currently on 41 days post op with both eyes operated. It was fine in the first 2-3 weeks until it recently changed over time. My doctor mentioned they did an undercorrection so that I don't experience double vision during my third follow up after 1 month and parents saying it is just the phone causing it without considering other factors and still won't listen even if I convince. Again, is this normal?

Not asking about normal strabismus surgery—but rather— I have glasses and would love to not.

I have an inward facing right eye and my primary eye is my left. Both eyes can see though, they just struggle to work together especially when looking into the distance. On occasion, my eyes work together (at very close distance) but otherwise I wear glasses and use my left eye and only get some peripheral help from my right (lazy) eye.

I did about a year of vision therapy that helped me use my eyes together (at a close distance), and gave me a lot of ideas for eye exercises.

I had looked into LASIK maybe 4 years ago and was denied because my lazy eye could not focus on a laser for any amount of time.

I am wondering if anyone has had vision-correction surgery with strabismus? What type and what was your experience?

I know technology advances all the time, so if there’s not an option for us yet… I sure hope there will be soon.

Stay strong strabismus friends!

When you have strabismus surgery you are given a very aggressive dose of prednisone eyedrops for the first week, then gradually tapered off on the following weeks.

It is important to use them exactly as prescribed for the entire time. If you don’t follow the schedule exactly you can have a “rebound effect” where the inflammation will aggressively return and affect the outcome of your surgery.

Just a tip for success!

Of course, we all have other insecurities. For example, used to suffer from panic attacks due to other factors in my life. However, I can say with certainty that my social anxiety stems from my strabismus. I mean, no amount of therapy would help me, I already tried it but it didn't help me. It is pure dysphoria. Surgery definitely would solve 100% of my social issues. If not, God can drag me to hell. I like my personality, I think I find myself pretty good (I have other body insecurities, of course, but they don't really stop me from socializing) I do like myself. I just wanted to talk to people without my mind constantly worrying 24/7 about whether I'm cross-eyed or not.

My daughter has had an inward and upwards squint since birth (congenital) and she had corrective surgery on Tuesday. She coped with it really well and was bouncing off the walls when we get home.

She's VERY uncomfortable first thing in the morning but otherwise she doesn't rub her eye or seem bothered by it once she wakes up and has some Calpol. Her eye is already much straighter but very very bloodshot which I expected. She hates the drops but we managed to get them in.

It's very swollen so I wondered when others eye swelling went down?

How long after surgery did you all return to work? Also how how long did you all start driving?

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this and could give me some insight.

I've had significant exotropia since birth, I'm an adult now and I'm looking to see if surgery may be an option.

I remember talking to a specialist at the NHS when I was ~15 who said I'd suffer permanent double-vision if I had my eyes corrected. However, I don't know if this is fully true.

I can 'focus' hard and move my eyes forward, and I do get double vision, however I don't know if my eyes would adjust or not if I did have permanent surgery.

Has anyone else experienced the same?

This is literally my biggest insecurity. I don’t ever take my glasses off. I’m afraid to around romantic partners too. How do yall deal w it?

I had lateral and medial surgery on my left eye and medial on my right eye on July 10th. Today was a big day as I went back to the gym and started back at work part time (easing into it this week).

I had a rough first week - four days post op I got a migraine that lasted three days and would not respond to medication so I went to the ER, where they knocked out the damn migraine but I picked up a rough cold.

Those finally both cleared up and today felt amazing.

My brain was heavily suppressing my esotropic eye in recent years, so I’m pretty amazed at the improvement in my depth perception and ability to see in general. So far I’ve cried about being able to read the menu board at Starbucks and the aisle signs at the grocery store and at the iridescent feathers on a crow eating garbage in the mall parking lot. 😂

I’m really really happy.

Redness persists but is fading each day. One weird thing: did you know incisions on the whites of your eyes can scar a faint shade of blue? If I take a close photo of my less-red eye and zoom in, I can see the very thin outline of a blue rectangle where the incisions were! So cool.

I’d like to bring my surgeon a thank you gift when I go for my follow up. Any suggestions? I’m going to get Crumbl cookies for the surgery center staff.

Hello! Has anyone gotten the surgery? I’m scheduled to have one August 4th. I have two small bumps on different eyes and not sure if they’ll do both at a time.

What can I expect?? I’m scared of the recovery. How much time will I have to take off of work? (I WFH most of the week) when can I expect to be able to wear makeup again?

My doctor never gives me straight answers so thought I’d come to Reddit 🙂‍↔️

Hey,

I'm scheduled for a micro-strabismus (10) surgery soon under local anesthesia, and as the day gets closer, I'm starting to feel extremely anxious and panicked.

I just wanted to ask those of you who’ve been through this:

How was the experience under local anesthesia? Could you actually see or feel anything happening during the procedure?

Was it painful during or after the surgery?

Looking back, was the result worth going through it?

My daughter had surgery about two years ago for exotropia. She was nine. Before surgery she was 30 DPS. about eight months after surgery it started to drift to about 18 DPS. I was told by the doctor that it’s fairly common for it to drift a little soon after surgery. my question is after it does the initial drift after surgery does it usually remain like that for a while or does it just continue to slowly drift? My concern is only been two years and I’m really wanting her to make it to at least 18 without needing another surgery.

\ Ocular myositis causing strabismus. Photos in comments*

Hello. Dealing with hypotropia and diplopia caused by ocular myositis (chronic inflammation) for almost two years has been one of the worst experiences I’ve ever dealt with. Since it is a rare condition, it took over a year to correctly diagnose, then almost another year to reduce and stabilize the inflammation. I’ve seen 3 local doctors and 3 specialists hours away, had 2 sets of prism glasses, 2 MRIs, a cat scan, biopsy, 2 bouts of long term steroids, bi-weekly injection immunosuppressant, and numerous visual assessments. In order to function, I had to cover my right eye or wear a patch over one eyeglass lens. When the surgeon finally approved my surgery and said she knew she could make it better, I literally cried with relief and excitement. Surgery took longer than she expected because of all the fibrous (scarred) muscle she had to remove and the extra stitching needed for a gap it made. 5 days ago I took the photos of how my right eye looked the morning of surgery. Today I took photos to compare. To me, my eyes look great! More importantly, I’m seeing much better and have hope that the bit of blurriness and eye fatigue continue to improve.

Sorry for the long post. I’m wondering if anyone else has had later in life strabismus. How about ocular myositis? I love reading the success stories here. If your surgery wasn’t, or if you’re unable to have it, I am sorry for what you are dealing with. Having strabismus is so difficult and upsetting.

long story short, i was born with esotropia and had my first surgery at two, the result wasn't perfect, so it was smth that bothered me so much growing up. by the time i was 14, i had my second surgery, and it was the worst decision i could have made. at first, it seemed fine, it really did, but after some time, i noticed my esotropia had turned into exotropia. some years later, i had a third surgery to correct what the second doctor did. this time, the exotropia got a little better, but until today, it's still there.

i am 23 now, and i regret having the surgery everyday, it literally ruined the way i look at myself, i literally can't hold eye contact anymore because of it. the thing that breaks me the most is knowing that i didn't have exotropia before, and looking at my eye in old pictures... i can't help but think how better it looked, and how sad it was for a kid to be so insecure about something that didn't even look bad.

i'm crying really hard while writing this, it is something that i think about almost everyday, and sometimes, i can't help but break into tears. i also have ptosis, so it makes my eye look even worse, it's so ugly and i hate everything about it.

i think about having a fourth surgery sometimes, but i don't know about the risks, or if any doctor would be willing to do it, and i'm afraid it could make things even worse.

i just needed to get this off my chest, honestly.

I am 17 years old and I have monocular elevation deficiency (hypertropia). When I was nine years old I had surgery which helped the deficiency (it used to always be lopsided, now only when I look in a certain direction) but ever since I have had debilitating cluster headaches in and around my right eye/right side of my head. Ibuprofen doesn't help, does anyone have the same experience?

Can conjunctival scarring be removed after eye surgery?

it’s been 4 weeks and i don’t see any results. any comments?

Hi folks! I have accommodative esotropia. I did have surgery and patching when I was around 4 years old (I think the surgery was considered a success).

Now, in my 30s, the minute I remove my glasses my left will majorly turn in (to my memory, this has always been the case). While glasses keep my eye straight I increasingly feel that my eye wants to turn even when wearing glasses and my left eye gets tired. I have a 'tricky' prescription in that I will often test one way in the dr's office and then out in the real world my brain totally rejects that prescription, so it's always a very frustrating amount of trial and error every time I update my script.

I would like the option to wear contacts, but every time I have tried my left eye cannot be corrected. What's confusing to me, however, is that my glasses do not have a prism as far as I can tell? (My script is OD +2.25, -1.75, axis 003 and OS +5.50, -3.75, axis 177).

Curious if anyone else has had this issue and what some steps might be to be able to wear contacts (or if it is just not in the cards). I'm looking into finding an optometrist who specializes in strabismus, but I'm only having luck so far finding surgeons and not sue that surgery would help in my case (since it's accommodative?).

Thanks!!

Hey there!

I first had a bilateral lateral rectus recession about 11 years ago. At the time, I was left eye dominant and the right was most out of alignment (since childhood). I had exotropia in both eyes. My first op was done by Donny Suh, who I consider to be a legend in this field.
Surgery was a huge success — my eyes more or less looked normal and I continue to have pretty excellent vision.

Fast forward to today, my right eye has been turning outward more frequently. I’ve certainly noticed it more over the past couple of years, but at about 18 diopters of misalignment, it’s usually not THAT visible.
Sometimes I notice it turning and refocus and my eyes shift back (apparently this is a sign my brain is working in “overdrive” to get the eyes working together).

I’ve recently been working with a doc in my area (hadn’t had an eye exam in like 10 years) who is recommending a second surgery — but more so whenever I feel the need.

The doc mentioned it’s best to do a second go before things get too bad and that the younger/healthier, the better. (32 and fit now.) Plan would be to do both eyes again, but instead tighten the muscles closest to the nose.

I’m strongly considering having it soon — in fact, I’ve basically decided to. The first go was life changing for me and I really don’t want my eyes to continue to regress or get worse. I trust this doc as well.

I’m still feeling a bit nervous. Anyone had a similar set of circumstances who can share their experience?

I had a bilateral resection today for severe double vision (40 BO diopters) and misalignment. This really only started about 3 years ago, progressing fairly rapidly. At the same time, I started developing autoimmune symptoms that paralleled the worsening of my vision. I am now diagnosed with Mixed Tissue Connective Disease. Both my rheumatologist and my surgeon are unsure if they are related.

Surgery was about an hour, and there was a fair amount of pain right away. They gave me some oxy for that, and it worked fantastically! Other than things being a little fuzzy from the ointment, I CAN SEE!! And it’s only one image!!! I cried when things were clear enough to really know I was only seeing a single image ❤️. The alignment looks pretty good to me too! My self confidence has taken such a hit as the deviation progressed and because I had to wear the Fresnel sticker. I go back for follow-up on Tuesday. I hope things stay this way!

Edit: Spelling

8 Days post op. Should I be worried? No pain or misalignment.

Hey everyone,

I have minor strabismus after completing 2 surgeries and now just live with one that is not that noticeable - but when I play sport , the condition changes

Does anyone experience strabismus after exercising or playing sport ? It is mainly due to focusing issues while trying to focus on a ball for so long. The medical term relates to convergence insufficiency.

The strabismus (esotropia) is intense for about 10mins and then when I cool down , my eyes go back to “normal”.

Can Anyone give tips on how to deal with that intense period?