When I was a young child... Even a baby my used to be concerned about the fact that one of my eyes used to actually dissappear when I looked around...She took me to doctor after doctor and all she was told was that I had a lazy eyeand it would correct itself..She had seen a lazy eye before and was pretty sure that is was not that...She then took me on to optometrists when I was two and had one look at me again she was told I had a lazy eye...She decided to take me to another optometrist who told her it was not lazy eye at all he thought it was a slight turn that could rectify itself but reffered us on to an optomologist...By the time I got into him I was 4 years old and was no longer using my right eye fully...

I did quiet a few tests with this doctor and right from the start the doctor said it was not a Lazy eye or a slight turn...The whole of my right eye used to dissappear, so it was far from slight hehe...My mother and my kindegarten teacher found it a little disconcerting to tell the truth...After the second visit my mother was told the diagnosis...

The doctor told my mother and father that I had a rare disorder called Duane Syndrome... The definition of this syndrome is it is a congenital eye disorder of the eye movements...I have cut and pasted the below information from emedicine.com and will supply the link below as it very hard to explain without actually cutting and pasting the whole thing...

DS is a miswiring of the eye muscles that causes some eye muscles to contract when they should not and other eye muscles not to contract when they should. People with DS have a limited and sometimes absent ability to move their eye outward toward the ear (ie, abduction), and in most cases, they have a limited ability to move the eye inward toward the nose (ie, adduction).

Often, when the eye moves toward the nose, the eyeball also pulls into the socket (ie, retraction), the eye opening narrows. In some cases, the eye moves upward or downward. Many patients with DS develop a habit of turning their face to maintain binocular vision and thus compensate for improper turning of the eyes. In about 80% of all cases of DS, only 1 eye is affected, most often the left eye. However, in some cases, both eyes are affected; usually, 1 eye is affected more than the other.

After the optomologist diagnosed me it was decicded I would have an operation to correct this as best they could other wise I would stop using my right eye all together and eventually the brain would stop sending messages to this eye there fore i would lose my sight as well in this eye...I am not too sure of the treatments now for this condition but I know in 1978 the option we had was an operation...

I was sent to hospital and the operations was done...After the eye patch came off all I remember was how fantastic it was to not see double anymore...I went back to school and in stead of having a huge tilt to my head I had  a slight tilt to my head which is something that happens to alot of people with Duane Syndrome...

I had to do exercises when I was younger to build up the strength of this eye and it is not fully normal looking as you can see from the photos but I do have 20/20 vision....Without this operation they did not think I would...

Occassionally I will still walk into a pole or bump into people because without actually turning my head I dont have full peripheral vision...But as I have gotten older I have learnt to deal with this and learnt to turn my head...

This is a fairly rare disorder but one I think that should be looked at on a parenting site and this was my reasoning on writing about this...I check all my childerns eyes  but thankfully none of them have this but still it is no guarantee that their children will not...It is know to skip generations...This is my experience with Duane's Syndrome...Thanks for taking the time to read about this and if it interests you please take a look at the link below...

Have a great day
Cheers
Angie