I’d like to see some conclusive research on the incidence of strabismus in families. I’ve read that it’s not an inherited trait and conversely that it is inherited. It appears to be inherited in my family: 4 of my five siblings (all brothers) also have it! One of my brothers also has a son with strabismus. I’m thinking more members of my family are affected, but not diagnosed.

In an informal survey, I asked my brothers how they see and they said that like me, they use both eyes, switching quickly back and forth, with one eye dominant. We have both types of esotropia in our family. One brother has infantile esotropia and underwent three surgeries as a child to visually correct it. The rest of us have accommodative esotropia, which appears between the ages of 2 and 3. Being nearsighted, I was placed in bifocals the month before I turned 3 while my brother with infantile esptropia had 20/20 vision and received patching therapy after his surgery. Another was nearsighted and has amblyopia but didn’t like being patched and didn’t have any positive results from the little treatment he received.

As far as reading goes, basically we all got really good at accommodating our monovision. I think I’ve always had some fusion close up because reading has never been a struggle for me and I am a voracious reader. My brothers are not avid readers, but did fine in school. We all have college bachelor’s degrees and 4 of us also have graduate degrees. They are not experiencing the pronounced eye turn I am, so are apparently not worried about improving their visual function.

Strabismus also makes physical activities, especially sports a challenging endeavor. I have two brothers who excelled in basketball anyway. One brother even played college basketball on the junior college level and played for years in the county recreation league, often as the league high scorer for the year on the championship team. I often wonder how he was able to accommodate so well.

I recently discovered that my youngest daughter is also strabismic. She is currently in therapy along with me. Who would have thought we would be doing mother-daughter vision therapy? That gives new meaning to the idea that it really is all in the family!