Surgery for Exotropia

My daughter is having her second surgery on the 31st. We have an outstanding Dr. here at our Childrens Hospital in Knoxville. My daughters first surgery was to detach a muscle in each eye to stop the upward pull. We were hoping that afterwards the slight side to side movement would correct itself. We put her glasses back on and patched also. No such luck. I was so disapointed that she has to have another one, but I'm glad Dr. Gitchlag is proactive and wants to correct it before any permanent damage is done. (the strabismus was found at 18m and she will be 3 in a week and a half)
When she came out of surgery (Jan. 29th, 2011) she wanted to rub her eyes and she cried a lot. The stitches felt like something in her eye. The next day we did a lot of reminding that she couldn't rub her eyes. She would pat her cheeks and temples and say "oowwee" but by the next day most of the discomfort seemed to be gone. She did say,"Mommy, my eyes are broken" and it about broke my heart. We told her that, no, her eyes were being fixed. Her stumbling and falling was hugely improved with the first surgery. She had been seeing double and it really messed with her depth perception.
I'm stressed about this next surgery, because Dr. G is going to detach a muscle in each eye and re-attach it in a different place to correct the rest of the misalignment. I hate that she will have to go through it again and have to stay out of the pool and sand box for two weeks afterward, right at the beginning of summer.
I'm surprised your Dr. has waited this long. We had immediate results (as soon as she opened her eyes)
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or worries or just want to talk about it. I have asked questions about this on this sight and also about how to make DD wear her glasses when she was 18 months, etc.

I work with kids with vision impairments and have seen many students have good results from this procedure. Of course, follow the advice of your physician, but I do think it can very worthwhile.
Good luck! :)

My son has had many eye surgeries for various problems. The eye muscle Dr we dues was Dr Simpson at UC. I hear CHLA has some of the best children's eye Dr's in the nation. I would do it. he took it easy day of-and was back to normal the next day. no blood, and pain he had was day of and tylenol took care of it.

He has had to have a number of sugeries-his is a little different-side effects of a brain tumor. and following surgeries were for minor tweaks, he'll probably have 1 more. You will notice a difference immediately. i do not know if you noticed-but one of the flower girls in the recent royal wedding had crossing, and I wondered-why haven't they fixed her eye? Could be her age, but, I would do it, her vision will be better, and she wont get teased.

My mom had the surgery as an adult. Her case was not severe but she did not really know it could be corrected until she got older. It has been over 12 years and very occasionally she has had a minor issue but overall it has been great. There was an incident where one of my siblings had left 2 spoons side by side on the kitchen counter a few weeks after that kind of freaked my mom out. Once she reached out and touched them and realized there were in fact 2 she was so releived. My mother had outpatient surgery as well. I know she did hers at Kaiser Lakeview in Anaheim. A day or 2 after the surgery she went back for some adjustments. When they work on a really young child the child can not provide feedback as to an improvement in their vision. At 5 I think your son is old enough to provide feedback which will hopefully limit the chances he will need another surgery in the future. Good luck with your decision.