Talk:Amblyopia

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Contents 1 Amblyopia equals AIDS??? 2 Amblyopia and Ocular Dominance 3 removed "this remains controversial." 4 Bates Method 5 "Lazy eye" 6 Too many dead links 7 Depth perception 8 Lazy eye? 9 Prozac

[edit] Amblyopia equals AIDS???

It was quite ironic that Amblyopia is one of the very few diseases that is not tamed enough by the human intelligence. It almost goes unnoticed at the very age of the victim, when it can be best controlled. It is good that children are lucky enough to have wonderful treatment regimens available to them these days, if only, when detected in time, that is in their very early years, but the stigma and pain that is associated with Adult Amblyopia is particularly unbearable. I came to know that I am one of the very few people who fell to this seemingly innocuous disease(rather poor vision condition - doctors won't give up to call it a disease) when I was first disqualified in 'Army Selections'. That was a blow to my career as I always dreamt of becoming an 'Officer in Uniform' right from my childhood. Then started my ordeal, it forced me to change my goals, take up unplanned ventures, constantly irritated me now and then, and more than anything else, I am very much depressed to imagine the fact that one day I will become a one-eyed jack.

While it is extremely painful to learn that there is no proven treatment for the adults, the plight of the people like me in the still developing countries is un-imaginable, where nothing is being done effectively, even the diagnosis of this bloody disease( let me vent my anger).

My Dear Brothers Of The World Who Are In The Same Boat With Me: We share the slogan with the victims of the most dreaded disease(or ???condition) on this earth AIDS:

DOCTORS OF THE WORLD: DO SOMETHING AND SAVE US before it is too late.

This seems rather over-wrought. I have had amplylpia since early childhood, did the patch thing without any results, and have lived with it since age 5, now I am 60. Other than in a few situation involving hand-eye coordination, it has never been a bother. Unfortunately (IMO), it did not keep me out of the Army, infantry, or Viet Nam. Wschart 18:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, Wschart. I do not have amblyopia, but i work in a lab researching it. The amblyopes who come into the lab seem to be irritated by their poor vision, but comparing it to AIDS is just ridiculous and frankly offensive. That blog has nothing on it anyway, so I removed the link... Famousdog 14:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Same as Wschart, I have had it since early childhood. Did the patch thing as a child, tried a contact lens for a while (no noticeable difference, and while there were very slight improvements I did not feel it was worth it). Whenever it comes up I talk about how it seems like I can see through sides of objects. I do sympathize with people pursuing professions in which eyesight matters, good luck with your new plans and don't let external circumstances drag you down. Pomte 18:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amblyopia and Ocular Dominance

Does Amblyopia have anything to do with Ocular Dominance?
Ocular Dominance Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance

Amblyopia has a lot to do with ocular dominance, though not necessarily in a clear-cut way. Monocular occlusion during development is a well-known way to cause amblyopia, and causes the ocular dominance columns of cortex for the dominant eye of the amblyope to dominate that of the amblyopic eye. Behaviorally, amblyopia-which has a poor medical definition-exhibits symptoms that suggest information loss in transmission from eye to cortex because of poor development. That information loss could be caused by the mechanics of the screwed up distribution of ocular dominance cells, which extends in a loop from the eye through the lateral geniculate nucleus, and into the cortex, as well as into the pons which controls certain automatic tracking activities.<spetz>.216.175.188.98 22:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removed "this remains controversial."

The controversial aspect is covered by the bates method article. It now looks as if the claim of some is controversial.Seeyou 22:03, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bates Method

About the deletion lazy eye or tense eye. WIkipedia also has the policy of a neutral point of view. That means when there are substantial bodies of opposing opinions, they all need to be presented. The formula is "A says B about C." You can't say in the article "mainstream medicine is bunk." You can't say in a vague sort of way "Bates supporters think mainstream medicine is bunk." You can say "so-and-so, in his book Thus-and-such, says on page 234, 'mainstream medicine is bunk.'".Seeyou 18:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Look your vague references to eyes being 'tense' as opposed to 'lazy' or 'poor' suggest that you don't know what amblyopia is, so I'm removing this stuff as its just an attempt to promote the Bates method, not an attempt at 'neutrality'. When they use the term 'lazy eye', ophthalmologists don't mean the eye is actually 'lazy'. Or, indeed, that it is 'tense' and equally meaningless comment. Famousdog 17:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply 1 :

> Look your vague references to eyes being 'tense' as opposed to 'lazy' or 'poor' suggest that you don't know what amblyopia is. Why is the reference vague, please explain. suggest that you don't know what amblyopia is ? That is your opinion !

> I'm removing this stuff as its just an attempt to promote the Bates method, not an attempt at 'neutrality' It is an attempt to give valueble information about amblyopia.. I am quite sure a lot of people will find this information very interesting not an attempt at 'neutrality' Again that is your opinion Objective people will say you are not neutral by removing this information.

> When they use the term 'lazy eye', ophthalmologists don't mean the eye is actually 'lazy'. Or, indeed, that it is 'tense' and equally meaningless comment. don't mean the eye is actually 'lazy'. I do understand why ophthalmologists call amblyopia lazy eye. It looks like a ambliopic eye is lazy from the ophthalmologists point of view. But when you really understand and know the cause, a far better name is tense eye. Now ophthalmologists give on a subjecitve level false information that the eye is not working hard enough. And make it very hard for the public to find the real reason and solutions. In other words This is very valueable information with a reference everybody can check, When you think the ophthalmologists are right and the natural vision improvement movement is wrong about the cause (?) you are not neutral. Do ophthalmologists say something about the cause of amblyopia by the way ? Or are they vague ? Seeyou 22:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

1) Because you haven't defined what 'lazy', 'poor' and 'tense' mean and what they refer to. 2) This information is "valuable" only to people selling useless products supposed to help that only have anecdotal evidence to support their use, not valuable to people with amblyopia. 3) "Tense" is not a better word that "lazy", because neither of them are helpful or descriptive. Ophthalmologist have found out lots of things about the causes, development and nature of Amblyopia and what they have found out certainly isn't "vague". Mainstream ophthalmology and neuroscience (my own particulart interest in this topic) haven't found a cure (yet!), but I believe they one day will. The "natural vision movement" hasn't found a cure either but gives false hope to people by selling its books and tapes on purely anecdotal support rather than proper science. Famousdog 14:50, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Reply 2 :

1. Again, why is the reference vague ? Please explain.with arguments ?

2. Fact : Objective people will say you are not neutral by removing this information. True or untrue ?

The name lazy eye makes it very hard for the public to find the real reason and solutions. In other words This is very valueable information with a reference to a book everybody can check when they are interested, When you think the ophthalmologists are right and the natural vision improvement movement is wrong about the cause (?) you are not neutral. We should be very happy wikipedia can allow this information to reach the public.

Q : 1) Because you haven't defined what 'lazy', 'poor' and 'tense' mean and what they refer to. I have not defined anything ! A : I have given a citation from a book with a opposite point of view. ( A lazy eye needs to work harder, a tense eye needs relaxation. )

This information is "valuable" only to people selling useless products supposed to help that only have anecdotal evidence to support their use, not valuable to people with amblyopia. A : That is your opinion. There also people selling glasses and making a lots of money. This is no argument.

"Tense" is not a better word that "lazy", because neither of them are helpful or descriptive. A : Tense is far better than lazt because is gives information about the cause and the solution. Lazy describes only the symptom

Mainstream ophthalmology and neuroscience (my own particulart interest in this topic) haven't found a cure (yet!), but I believe they one day will. A : I don’t think they will find a cure. They have got the wrong starting point, but you never know they might read this.!

The "natural vision movement" hasn't found a cure either but gives false hope to people by selling its books and tapes on purely anecdotal support rather than proper science. A : That is your opinion. My opinion is the opposite.

I don’t think we will ever come to an agreement. Let’s ask others what they think about the referenced information lazy eye or tense eye :

When people are told they have a bad, poor or lazy eye, the assumption is made that the problem is occuring because the eyes are not working hard enough. In truth the opposite is the case – there is to much tension in the visual system. Bates said many types of amblyopia are caused by strain ^[1].

(sigh...) Aguing over whether "tense" is a better word than "lazy" doesn't help anybody. Recommending "relaxation" or "swinging of the eyball" is useless. Amblyopia (in laymans' terms as much as possible) is caused by blurred images on the retina during the development of the visual areas of the brain. This can be as a result of strabismus (squint), anisometropia or deprivation of visual input in one eye. The half of the visual system that deals with input from the effected eye develops abnormally, with poorer contrast sensitivity and insensitivity to high spatial and temporal frequencies - probably a direct result of the blurred image during development. There is evidence of "higher-level" deficits such as global motion perception and undercounting of visual features. Whether these high-level deficits are a downstream result of the initial contrast impairment or a result of separate deficits is currently under investigation by several labs, mine included. Thousands of researchers have contributed to this detailed picture of the impairments occuring in amblyopia. Citing Bates' pseudoscience does their work a huge disservice! In conclusion: The Bates Method is based on outdated, spurious research and the flakey opinions of just one man. It has only anecdotal evidence in its favour and I have already wasted far too much time discussing this. Famousdog 14:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The section in question [1] is original research and should be kept out of the article. There is also considerations about how much weight is placed on Bate's methods; it appears to me that a wikilink is enough, and a section of a paragraph would give it undue weight. It doesn't matter if Bate's method is true or not, Wikipedia is not the place to debate what is true and what is false, but to report the facts (as WP:Verifiability defines them) and POVs as POVs to the extent of the significance of those who take them (of course, you can add as much stuff about Bate's method in the article of that name, but not on this page). I suggest anyone wanting to add the section back to revise Wikipedia policies first. RB972 23:42, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

third party, Thank you. Now I understand. From the point of view of the public the source is not reliable. Still I hope the public will rebel and check the source with an open mind. Seeyou. Seeyou 21:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Lazy eye"

Amblyopia is not "lazy eye". Strabismus is. I have strabismic amblyopia. That is, as a child my strabismus (now cured) led to amblyopia (not cured). I have not had "lazy eye" since my childhood even though I still suffer from amblyopia. I thus suggest that the appositive ", or lazy eye," be removed from the article's first sentence. --198.203.175.175 14:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree. Although hardly used by clinicians, the term "lazy eye" refers to amblyopia, which may be caused by strabismus. It is a common misconception that "lazy" = wandering = strabismus, but "lazy" in fact refers to "weaker" or "suppressed". The fact that the two often occur together propogates this confusion. Famousdog 17:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for that educational clarification. Do you think that this warrants a clarification either here or at Strabismus? They both essentially start out "X is lazy eye.", where X is the article title. --198.203.175.175 17:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. Do they? I'll check that out. In the meantime here's a FAQ page to clarify further [2] Famousdog 18:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Changed strabismus and lazy eye accordingly. Famousdog 18:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too many dead links

Hi there,

Just read the article on amblyopia. It raises as many questions as it answers, mainly because so many difficult terms are used but not explained, at least no by wikipedia. These terms seem to be linked to non existing articles :(

Sitz

Umm. Sorry, but I only found two redlinks, which I have now corrected. Many of the technical terms link to other wikipages. Exactly which section are you having trouble with? Famousdog 14:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Depth perception

People who have never had binocular vision don't understand what it would be like to have it -- and vice versa. This article seems to be full of the normal view of people who do not have amblyopia, who are sure it must be a terrible curse to have it. But, actually, people with amblyopia can have depth perception. It would be interesting to find an accurate description of what difference binocular vision actually makes -- but it would probably have to be written by researchers who don't have binocular vision... -69.87.203.221 23:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Read the article "Stereo Sue" from the New Yorker magazine. Its written by a woman who had no depth perception (stereopsis) for 50 years then suddenly regained it. Famousdog (talk) 18:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lazy eye?

Is there a reason why Lazy eye isn't redirected here? It would appear that this should be so from reading the other article. · AndonicO ^Talk 22:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think its better if Lazy eye remains a disambiguation page, since there is confusion over the term and people looking for info on stabismus might get redirected to amblyopia when it isn't relevant to them. Famousdog 14:08, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prozac

Let me explain why I wholesale removed the section on prozac as a potential "cure"...

This is one study. And its in mice not humans. And it involves a drug. And this drug has recently been shown to not really have any great antidepressant effects. That means that producers of prozac could potentially be losing their "depressed kids" market and may be scouting about for some other group to sell it to.

Finally, and most importantly, I would feel pretty bad if, based on this flimsy evidence, amblyopic kids started taking Mum's prozac because they didn't like wearing a patch for two hours a day. I suggest we let scientists do their job and test this hypothesis before proclaiming it as a new "cure". The jury is very much still out on this one. One swallow does not a summer make... Famousdog (talk) 18:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)