I have amblyopia in my left eye. I am nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other with astigmatism in both. My strong eye used to be 20/20 naturally while while my poor eye was 20/100 when diagnosed. It was diagnosed when I was 7 years old due to my constant complaints about headaches and a very attentive elementary school teacher noticing that i propped my head up with my right hand and covered my right eye whenever she gave us material to read.

I began therapy afterwards including patches, colored glasses that each only allowed me to see half of a television screen which forced the eyes to work together to get the whole picture. Alot of hand eye excercises were done while I was patched and my eye progressed to 20/50.

A divorce between my parents and the resulting move away from the place I was getting treatment left me alone at 8 to work on my vision problems by myself. Needless to say nothing ever got done to help further.

I just relied on my “good eye” into adulthood and gradually noticed that I couldn’t see roadsigns quickly enough and couldn’t really make out the identity of people until I was right up on them. I relented and went back to an optometrist when I finally had my own income in adulthood. My “good” eye had regressed due to the constant strain and was only 20/100 itself but my lazy eye was 20/400 in the other direction. (Explains why I had so much trouble zeroing in on those flyballs in high school haha.)

Corrective lenses got my vision in my good eye back nearly to 20/20 and my poor eye back to 20/200. The optometrist told me there wasn’t any hope at this point to help my poor eye and I might as well stop treating it to save myself the money of lenses.

Unfortunately I took this guys advice and my wife has noticed my lazy eye slowly closing itself. I finally can see it in the mirror myself, the lid rests about a quarter of the distance lower than the lid on the eye I’m using.

Now I read on this sight that recent research indicates some recovery is possible at any age although it isn’t nearly as good at this point as it was when I was younger. Makes me regret following the optometrists advice when I think about the past few years I could have been trying to restore some of my vision.

Note to parents: Pay attention to your children when they read or are watching TV. Make notes of any patterns you see emerging. The earlier you catch a problem like this the easier it is to correct.

I noticed my own son around 5 years old would have a slight flutter in his right eye almost like he was winking. He didn’t realize he did it and told me that sometimes that eye hurts so he just closes it for a second or two. We took him to a reputable childrens opthomologist and he has the same issue that I do, just in the opposite eyes. Luckily his prognosis is extremely good since the problem was caught before it was very developed.

Hope this helps someone.