Squint Eye Surgery (आँखों का भेंगापन): Corrected, Treatment & Recovery, Is it Painful?

Is Squint Eye Surgery Painful: आँखों का भेंगापन का इलाज बिना दर्द के संभव है ?

In this video, SimpliHealth expert, an eye specialist at Mirchia’s Laser Eye Clinic, Dr. Anin, is talking about squint eye surgery.

Often patients ask our experts

• How effective the squint operation is?
• How much is it successful?

Squint Eye Surgery, There is a 90 – 95% success rate in the most common type of squint involving no muscle damage. But if the child is a little younger, then squint can come back after 5-10 years. But the reoccurrence is only in 5-10% of the cases. 

Now let’s talk about those patients whose eye muscles have stopped working or have become worse for some reason or those who have structural problems. Under these situations, it is hard to determine the success rate of the squint operation. It depends on which muscles of the patient are working and the patient’s expectations. 

This type of skewness in which no muscles are working or the eyeball cannot rotate in one direction, then we can straighten the eye, but if the muscles that are not moving or are not working, we can’t heal it. So it depends on what kind of squint it is. But in 90-95% of the cases, skewness operation is effective.

Is Squint Eye Surgery Painful?

Like any operation, squint also causes pain in operation, but to ease the pain, we give injections to numb the eye in adults, and its effect lasts for 1 hour to 90 minutes so that the patient doesn’t feel pain during an operation. 

In contrast, the child is entirely sedated for the operation so that they also do not have pain. There is some degree of pain on the first day after the operation, for which we give painkillers so that the pain does not become a big problem.  

At what age the squint operation should be done?

We have made a more detailed video on squint in children; you can see that too, but let me tell you that squint operation depends on what kind of squirt the child is bearing, which further determines the age at which we can do the operation. If the child’s eye is turned inwards or towards the nose, we also call it esotropia; In such patients, it is better to have the operation as soon as possible because, in esotropic patients, vision development is not possible. 

So if we delay the operation, it becomes challenging to improve the eyesight. Another type of skewness in which the eyes are on the outside is called exotropia or divergent squint. At whatever age the child can get a reliable test, we can operate on them at that age. 

Otherwise, there is no such thing that the operation can be done when they grow up. As I told you, esotropia is a danger to the eyes. So we can do the operation even at one year of age. And children who have exotropia can wait for up to 3-4 years of age, but if they remain untreated, they will lack in developing the ability of 3D or in-depth perception, so we have to operate early. 

How long does a squint operation take?

It depends on how many muscles we need to operate. It takes about 30- 75 minutes. It takes 30 minutes to operate on a single muscle, and if we need to work on  3 to 4 muscles, the operation might take one hour to 75 minutes.

Do we need glasses after a squint operation?

If you were using glasses before the operation, you have to wear glasses after the procedure. Whether you are a young child or an adult, wearing glasses is necessary. The number of specs can change. After the operation, we check the number of specs after a month or in 3-4 weeks, and we give new specs to the patient.  

Is patching treatment needed after the operation?

It depends on the type of skewness and eyesight. For example, suppose the child is young, and there is the development of lazy eyes or amblyopia, on which the doctor  has made another video. In that case, such patients may still need patching after the operation to improve vision.