If you have a child between the age of 8-27 with lazy eye (amblyopia), the National Eye Institute will soon be soliciting volunteers for a study on a new form of treatment involving the drugs levodopa and carbidopa. These drugs are precursors for the production of dopamine , one of the main neurotransmitters, and often are sued to treat Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine is synthesized in the retina tissue in the back of the eye in amacrine cells. When the eye is light adapted, a lazy eye will show reduced levels of dopamine production, Dopamine seems to have a number of roles, effecting contrast sensitivity (which is one form of vision reduced in a lazy eyes. Rescued levels also inhibit the eye elongating (or growing longer from front ot back). This action tends to make an eye farsighted with astigmatism (since it does not seem to effect chewnges in equitoriL growth).

Adding these precurseres to lazy eye treatment may help restore sight past the age where we expect good results. After age 7-8 success rates drop down to 20-30% at best. This study will compare levadopa with and without patching an eye to see if there is a marked improvement. It will be oral supplementation with Levadopa. The trial is not yet recruiting for subjects and will probably require travel out of state.

This is very noteworthy from the aspect of treating a neurodegenerative condition potentially with a pharmaceutical drug and maybe reversing sightloss at an age where recovery isn’t normally expected.

Free treatment for lazy eye? Well free eye care is worth what it costs-but a simple eye drop prescription  may be able to save you a thousand dollars or more in treatment fees. And that’s equivalent to a lot of free office visits.

Forget the pirate patch, eye drops are the treatment of choice today for lazy eye. No more daily struggles with your child to keep an eye patch on, one drop in the morning and your responsibility is done for the day. Lazy eye, (technically referred to as Amblyopia), is the most common cause of permanent sight loss in children and if not treated by age 7 to 9 it persists into adulthood  with permanent damage to the visual cortex area of the brain. It is the leading cause of vision loss in one eye in the 20-70 year old age group, occurring in around 3% of the population.

Most of the information on the success of treatment of lazy eye has been from limited,uncontrolled studies. There is a great opportunity for future learning about improving the treatment of lazy eye.

Amblyopia   is still usually treated with outdated methods of occlusion (patching) of the eye that sees well. Patching therapy typically has very poor compliance, especially since you cannot be with your child every minute of the day. Kids don’t like wearing patches after the novelty wears off and may be subjected to ridicule by peers. Evidence indicates that compliance is probably the most important factor in the outcome of treatment of lazy eye.

Using a cycloplegic eye drop that prevents the good eye from focusing forces the lazy eyes to work to see thing at closer distances. As a side effect of the drops the pupil of the good eye stays dilated, so it needs some form of UV protection in eyeglasses or sunglasses. This is not a new method but it has started catching on due to recent studies showing it is effective and very well accepted by parents and children. Without a patch blocking one eye completely the child is able to maintain some level of binocular vision which helps the treatment process. It also assures there is no impairment to peripheral vision, making it a safer alternative to a patch.

Atropine is the drop normally used but we substitute homatropine. It is safer and in my opinion there is really no need  to keep the effect lasting overnight while the child is asleep.

There is a tremendous cost and time saving to the parent due to less frequent office visits and a great reduction in the amount of eye exercises needed to restore the sight. If you think there is no way you can get a drop in your child’s eye every day we have a secret for that too. If your child has a lazy eye we can help make it easy and fun!

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A fun new movie I recently went to see was Monsters vs. Aliens. It started just before a wedding with a bride growing (not glowing) from meteorite exposure, to enormous height and strength. Reese Witherspoon supplies the voice. Not a great movie but it is fun and the technology is fascinating. Monsters vs. Aliens was released on almost every 3-D screen avaible today with a count over 2000 and growing.Projections are for 40 new 3-D films within the next three years. RealD technology utilizes circular polarization, a technique with the polarization varying in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. In Optometrists offices, polarized lenses and images are utilized in one constant plane tests for lazy eye (amblyopia) or crossed eyes (strabismus). Eye Doctors also use polarized equipment when treating binocular dysfunction for eyestrain, double vision, and convergence insufficiency causing vision related reading problems. Quality sunglasses enhance vision by using a fixed plane polarization to block reflections that occur most frequently from the surface of water. The RealD technology is comes with a high price tag costing theatres $50,000 to $70,000 per screen for the digital projection equipment and additional licensing fees. That’s why there is a nice little surcharge ($2.50 in Fort Collins) for the special eyeglasses needed. The neat thing is the circular polarization helps you maintain binocular vision and lessens eyestrain when you tilt your head, unlike older technologies. Less squinting and your eyes won’t leave the theatre with dry eyes from staring throughout the film trying not to see double. The first 3-D film shown to a paying audience was The Power of Love in Los Angeles in 1922. It was projected with anaglyphs, which involves showing a green image to one eye and a red image to the other which are shown from slightly different view points. Anaglyphs are still used by Optometrist in vision therapy for problems like Computer Vision Syndrome. Looking to the future, Steven Spielberg started work on a 3-D system in 2005 using plasma screens that is supposed to work without any special glasses! Coming to a TV near you some day.