I was born with a condition that I didn’t know the name of till my late 20s. It is called Amblyopia. Just like short or long sightedness, this is not rare (about 3 in 100 children are born with it). It manifests in various forms due to a squint in your eye and sometimes everything could look typical. I fall under the second category — if you looked at me even with our noses to each other’s, you won’t really notice anything different. But it exists.
Amblyopia has several names and is commonly referred to as ‘lazy-eye’. It’s quite the ridiculous name for a condition that has nothing to do with the eye itself. Like I mentioned earlier there’s nothing lazy about my eyes. They move just fine. If I didn’t tell you you wouldn’t know I have this condition. If you make me stand next to someone who doesn’t have this condition you wouldn’t know the difference either. Because there isn’t any. It has nothing to do with my eyes (although it could result from a slight angular misalignment in one’s eyes). It has everything to do with my brain. In fact, even for those that have noticeably atypical eyes, the condition is neural and not optical.
The causes are manifold. It is a genetic trait and has a likelihood to be passed on to future generations. It could also develop over time depending on whether the child prefers one eye over the other and so on. Amblyopia is the condition under which due to one or more causes a child ends up preferring one eye over the other. It is not a choice, just that one eye ends up working harder than the other because it has better vision, or better angular position. Over time the child’s brain ends up preferring images from the stronger eye, and the rich neural connections that need to form over time ends up happening only for that eye.
As a consequence, popular research says that the earlier this is spotted, the more likely it is that it can be fixed. I first went to an ophthalmologist when I was in class seven or so. According to popular research then, I was a few years older than the threshold for curing this. Yet, they tried the same exercises used to treat it in younger children — an eye patch to force me to use the weaker eye in the hopes of training it back into being preferred. Though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the eye itself — when I close my stronger eye my weaker eye ‘takes over’ and I can see as if I don’t have the condition — the neural connections required were already formed with my brain preferring my stronger eye.
In India, at least in the early 90s, eye exams weren’t common for new born children and it wasn’t part of annual checks children go through in their first few years. So I was never really diagnosed when it was early enough to treat it with eye patch exercises and the like. It is recommended that if spotted before the age of 5, there’s a high chance that it can be treated via training the child to not prefer one eye over the other. Children seem to start verbalizing things as early as when they’re just over a year old, so if you have kids definitely take them for an eye exam as soon as they are ready to interact with a doctor.
Growing up, I didn’t experience anything differently. I had a typical childhood and didn’t even learn there was a problem until it was too late to fix through eye exercises. When I was around 12 I went to get a routine eye exam done and we discovered that I had this condition. Fortunately, it never made a difference till then, nor has it made a difference till now (some 18 years later).
When I say I had a typical childhood, I was able to read and write at a fairly advanced level starting from kindergarten. I didn’t really prefer sitting up front in the class. I learned to ride a bicycle quickly enough. I played sports involving depth perception all through my childhood into adolescence and I play sports even as an adult fairly routinely. I started playing video games — shooters, racers, sports all requiring depth perception and fast reflexes. I continue to play almost every day as I step into my 30s and I dare say I’m pretty good at most games I play. What’s your K/D, punk?
I drive a car regularly and have been driving a few thousand miles a year since my early 20s. I wear glasses (for very low astigmatism unrelated to the amblyopia) when I drive at night. My biggest flex here is that I have logged several hours of flight-time as a student pilot — day and night hours. I’ve all but secured a license pending medical which I’ve put off due to a few extra steps I’m required to take for my condition. The first thing my medical examiner said when I explained my condition was “there are way more one-eyed pilots than you think there are” :) Flying a Cessna is just like driving a car or spending hours on a flight-sim. It’s pretty rad.
I said all the above because I want to assure you this isn’t a condition that one has to be in denial about. I didn’t even know it had a name till I was 28. It didn’t matter. I can’t even explain if I see differently compared to you because I never transitioned from pre to post amblyopia — at least not consciously. I never really wanted to write about this as there’s not much to say for myself. The only inconveniences I’ve noticed are that I don’t seem to get ‘3D’ movies. Avatar wowed me as a 16 year old but not as much as it wowed my 14 year kid sister. I don’t enjoy rollercoasters and I’d like to attribute it to this. I don’t want to appear weak otherwise 😉
I didn’t give much thought to this condition as a child as it didn’t affect my day to day. And as a teenager and beyond it didn’t even cross my mind. To satisfy my curiosity I asked about it when I went for a routine eye exam in the US and my doctor explained about it and told me it had a name. She also mentioned that it is hard to treat it beyond the age of 6 though there’s now research proving that it can be treated well into late teens and even in some adults.
When I learned that this had a name and that it could have been spotted if only there was enough awareness and a practice of looking for this specifically I was pretty disappointed for having born at a time and in a country where this wasn’t routine. It made me sad to learn that this had a name. But on the other hand, it made me happy that children in developed nations are fortunate to be tested for it.
I’ve been wanting to write this for a while because I’m at that age where my friends are starting families. I’ve taken it upon myself to let all my friends who have kids know of this as soon as the kid starts talking or as soon as I notice them preferring one eye over the other. Because I look for it specifically, I am able to spot it sometimes.
This post is one such attempt to spread awareness, especially if you’re from a country where an eye exam (or one specifically to detect amblyopia) isn’t part of a child’s typical exams. If you have a kid, or if your friends have a kid talk to them about this. There’s absolutely nothing wrong in asking your doctor about this and taking the child for an eye exam. You’d be doing your children a great disservice if you’re denying them this privilege. Even if your kid is older (or a teenager) or if as an adult you feel like something in this post rang a bell, go get your eyes checked. For you it might be too late, but it would certainly help knowing your condition has a name. And most importantly, for your children it may not be too late!
I’ll leave you with a pretty sunset with a view of Mt. Rainier that I caught while flying a Cessna over Seattle. Excuse the picture quality, I was shaking with excitement.
