Strabismus

I knew as soon as I decided that I didn't need to keep a separate blog on Jack anymore that something preemie related would crop up and sure enough, it did. Since we aren't able to keep his glasses on, and Dr Denslow stated that the glasses weren't correcting the muscles enough anyway, he has decided to perform strabismus surgery to correct Jack's lazy eyes. It sounds really scary to me. Strabismus surgery commonly entails recessions of eye muscles if weakening of muscles is required, and resections of eye muscles when strengthening of eye muscles is required. Recession of an eye muscle requires disinsertion of one of the six muscles attached to the eye, and reattachment of the muscle further back on the eye, thereby causing weakening. Resection of an eye muscle requires disinsertion of the muscle from the eye, excising a portion of the distal end of the muscle, and subsequent reattachment to the eye, thereby resulting in a stronger muscle. The amount that a muscle is recessed or resected is based on the pre-operative degree of misalignment of the eyes, which is measured by the ophthalmologist using prisms.