# Poll: lazy eye or eyepatch? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 27, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116 "2005-10-27T04:10:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116/21 "2005-10-28T16:59:56Z")
Forgot to add this in my previous post: I also have some wierd (related?) thing where my brain doesn’t integrate the images from both my eyes. With both eyes open, I can mentally ‘switch’ from one point of view to another, which apparently most people cannot do. (It took me until I was about 17 to realize that this wasn’t normal.) ---
**Author:** ![Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kilvert\_s\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilvert_s_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116/22 "2005-10-29T01:23:31Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > Forgot to add this in my previous post: I also have some wierd (related?) thing where my brain doesn’t integrate the images from both my eyes. With both eyes open, I can mentally ‘switch’ from one point of view to another, which apparently most people cannot do. (It took me until I was about 17 to realize that this wasn’t normal.) me too. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116/23 "2005-10-31T02:26:29Z")
I wore glasses when I was younger - cross-eyed, it seems, maybe a touck of Amblyopia (I AM Kilvert’s Pagan’s brother - maybe these things run in the family). In the eighties I went to a new eye doctor, and was informed that I NEVER had amblyopia - my problem is that I’m an alternator. Basically, I’m blind in one eye, then blind in the other - switching back and forth so rapidly that I usually don’t even notice it. But I can’t use binoculars (just blacks out the vision), and sometimes, if I’m focusing on something faraway, and there is something much closer to me in the same line of sight, the image will start jumping between the two images. Other than that my vision seems to be fine. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116/24 "2005-10-31T05:55:33Z")
> [@NinjaChick](#): > > I’m not entirely sure what my eye problem was at a child, but I had more than enough to choose from. I knew I had whatever the condition where one eye ‘drifts’ - I’d focus on something, but my right eye would be pointed in the wrong direction. I had surgery as an infant to correct this (I think), but it apparently didn’t work, because I had the same surgery again when I was six or something. > > I also had to wear an eye patch for a long time - I don’t think I ever actually had to wear it to school, but it went on the second I got home and didn’t come off until bedtime, regardless of if there was an Important Social Event or something. I hated it with a passion, and have no idea what it was meant to correct. This was also around the time I got glasses, because I couldn’t manage to BS my way through eye exams anymore. > > There’s still a huge difference in the corrective perscription between my ‘good’ and ‘bad’ eyes, and my ‘bad’ eye still occasionally drifts a bit - so, thousands of dollars in visits to ophthamologists, two horribly unpleasant, traumatic and apparently poorly-done invasive operations, and about a year of social trauma apparently didn’t do squat. I have practically no depth perception (just watch me try to thread a needle), can’t see those stupid “magic eye” posters, am functionally blind without sickeningly-expensive lenses, and was told over the summer I might need surgery again in a year or so (as if I’d go through that hell willingly…). > > Not that I’m, you know, _bitter_ or anything. Some people can fix the problem by wearing glasses?! Word for word this is pretty much MY story too. Except I LIKED my eyepatch (and so did my friends) it ment I got to pretend like I was a pirate! 😃 But then again I’m a boy, I could understand **NinjaChick** ’s distain being a girl. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116/25 "2005-10-31T06:09:12Z")
Our toddler was born with a ‘lazy’ left eye; it simply could not move to the left of center. The eyedoctor has told us that an eyepatch or other treatment would most likely be counterproductive right now with the particular type of condition, so we’re waiting. But over time, it has gotten quite a bit better on its own and the eye can move some to the far side. So for now, I just take her in every year to get it checked on (she’s 2.5). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poll-lazy-eye-or-eyepatch/328116.md?page=1)