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Treating Lazy Eye with Patches and Drops

By Henry J. Fishman, M.D.
ConsumerAffairs.com

May 11, 2006

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Using eye drops may work just as well as a patch in treating lazy eye, according to an article in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology.

Kids with amblyopia have weak eye muscles, so one eye looks like it's lazy and goes to the side.

Currently, doctors treat it by placing a patch over the good eye so the lazy eye adjusts. Now, a study of 419 children ages 3 to 7 found that eye drops which blur the good eye may work just as well as a patch.

Researchers treated 215 kids with a patch, 204 with atropine, an eye drop.

Initially, the patch group did a bit better but 87 months later, the groups did about the same -- 80 percent of the kids in each group got better.

Kids preferred the drops to the patch, though they did occasionally cause side effects.

Conclusions: We need more research. If you child has lazy eye, see an ophthalmologist and discuss patches and drops. In the right kid, each works just fine.

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