A squint is when a person’s eyes do not align properly but look in different directions. People may also refer to it as “strabismus”. It often affects children but can occur at any age. The eye may turn inwards( Esotropia), outwards ( Exotropia), or more rarely upwards( Hypertropia) or downwards ( Hypotropia).
Strabismus surgery is eye muscle surgery to treat misaligned eyes (strabismus). This procedure makes your eye muscles either tighter or looser and aligns the position of your eyes so they’re centered and can work together.
Surgery can correct squints and is usually an effective treatment for squint.
Squint surgery is indicated when the eye shows constant misalignment, the squint is obvious, to correct troublesome double vision or when the binocular function starts to show loss of 3-D. Surgery is only used if other treatments are not effective. It can realign the eyes and restore binocular vision. Sometimes both eyes need to be operated on to get the right balance.
Sometimes, in adults and teenagers, further adjustments to your eye muscles may be made when you've woken up after the operation. Local anaesthetic eyedrops are used to numb your eyes for this.