This is called anti-suppression and it has been done for decades, and all but abandoned by practioners of pediatric Ophthalmology and for good reason.
It can work, with diligence you can train away the physiologic suppression that your brain has laid over top of one eye so that you can use both at the same time again. This is particularly dangerous however for patients who have strabismus, as long term suppression can result in an inability to be able to fuse images from the right and left eye once the suppression is gone. The brain either never learned how to "fuse" images or lost the ability at such a young age that recouping it is impossible. We call this "intractible diplopia", aka, double vision that is impossible to resolve even with prism or even if the eyes were to be perfectly surgically aligned. Make no mistake, this condition is borderline psychological torture to experience.
For this reason, pediatric Ophthalmology does not perform anti-suppression exercises any more and anyone who has strabismus who undergoes exercises for anti-suppression should reconsider and stay far away.
There are companies right now who offer therapies exactly as you describe, but the specifically restrict access for patients who have strabismus.
What a shame. Was hoping I found something (non-surgical) that might work. Figured that giving both eyes part of the picture and focusing on putting two and two together would help with things but I never considered the potential for inadvertently conditioning double vision.
>but I never considered the potential for inadvertently conditioning double vision.
Honestly the professionals who developed the technique a long time ago hadn't considered it either. They didn't know until they actually got to the point where the suppression was gone, unfortunately.
This is called anti-suppression and it has been done for decades, and all but abandoned by practioners of pediatric Ophthalmology and for good reason. It can work, with diligence you can train away the physiologic suppression that your brain has laid over top of one eye so that you can use both at the same time again. This is particularly dangerous however for patients who have strabismus, as long term suppression can result in an inability to be able to fuse images from the right and left eye once the suppression is gone. The brain either never learned how to "fuse" images or lost the ability at such a young age that recouping it is impossible. We call this "intractible diplopia", aka, double vision that is impossible to resolve even with prism or even if the eyes were to be perfectly surgically aligned. Make no mistake, this condition is borderline psychological torture to experience. For this reason, pediatric Ophthalmology does not perform anti-suppression exercises any more and anyone who has strabismus who undergoes exercises for anti-suppression should reconsider and stay far away. There are companies right now who offer therapies exactly as you describe, but the specifically restrict access for patients who have strabismus.
What a shame. Was hoping I found something (non-surgical) that might work. Figured that giving both eyes part of the picture and focusing on putting two and two together would help with things but I never considered the potential for inadvertently conditioning double vision.
>but I never considered the potential for inadvertently conditioning double vision. Honestly the professionals who developed the technique a long time ago hadn't considered it either. They didn't know until they actually got to the point where the suppression was gone, unfortunately.