My have intermittent exotropia can anyone answer this?

Question

I have always been very sensitive to bright lights in my right eye and my fiancee has been noticing that my right eye will drift off to one side on occasion. Recently, at work I have noticed that I can feel it drifting to one side and it keepts getting more and more frequent and difficult to get back to its normal state. I was just wondering if anyone knows if glasses will relieve the symptoms of exotropia?

Since I am a university student I do ALOT of reading and I am finding it increasingly difficult to read without loosing my line. Do you think my eye doctor would give me glasses to help with this problem?

Answer 1

Yes, there are often ways glasses can help with this, depending on the exact nature of the problem.  It's going to take an examination to assess this.

If the eye is drifting visibly to other people, but you do not notice double vision, you are good at suppressing the image from the wandering eye, and may have a touch of amblyopia there too.

That's not dreadful.

If there is a residual refractive error, correcting that may be enough to increase binocular stability, or an Rx with prisms may be indicated.

In some instances eye exercises can also be of benefit to the two eyes' coordination. If the eyes are giving binocular vison *sometimes* this can often be improved.

Optometrist, retired.