Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
crossed eye
I am looking for anyone whose LO has had a crossed eye. My DD is 17 months and her left eye crosses sometimes. It's not all the time, mostly when she is eating or looking at something close up. We are taking her to a pedi opthamologist on Friday and I am a little concerned. Has anyone been to a pedi eye doctor? Can you tell me a little about your experience? Is this normal? We were thinking she might be a doggy for Halloween, but maybe we'll look for a pirate costume instead! 
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Re: crossed eye
My DS's does. We took him to a pedi ophthalmologist a few weeks ago. They did have to dilate his eyes. It was just a few drops nothing awful. He wasn't a big fan of having to be held down to get the drops. It was a long appointment waiting for DS's eyes to dilate.
His eye and vision are fine. As it turns out, his face is misporportionate. (Yes, I'm a little sensitive about this). The space between his eyes (across the bridge of his nose) is much larger than average (88 percentile) but the space between the center of his pupils is like 22 percentile. Because they are so disporportionate it makes it look like his eye turns in. I'm thrilled his vision is fine and we don't have a real issue. However, not real thrilled with being told my child's face is just not in porportion. I'm trying to keep it positive though, at least he was above 50 percentile on some measurement.
I have a feeling this is going to be the same exact case with my DD.
Well I think he is cute as a button. DD's eyes look about the same distance apart as his and she is too
.
At least some jerkface on the nest isn't going around saying yours has FAS.
I bet it is something they might grow out of.
That still makes me angry!! Did you ever say the other day who it was? If not, will you PM me? I think I need a new e-enemy.
The doctor told me most likely he would just need time to grow into his features and a few years from now you'd never notice it.
Our DD actually has both eyes cross ... but one crosses for near vision and the other crosses for far vision. Because she was born at 28 weeks we have had her seen by an eye doctor since before her due date. Her eyes started crossing within her first year and we, as parents, noticed it a lot. I'm sensitive to it because I have lazy eye (diagnosed at age 3). When we would go in for her regular eye doctor follow ups, we'd bring it up. we even made a special appointment for them to see her for it. But they would NEVER cross in the doctor's office. UGH! What a pain. We knew it was real, but they couldn't see it. Anyway ... at around 17-18 months it started happening with MUCH greater frequency and severity. Everyone started seeing it and commenting on it. We took her to a new eye doctor for a second opinion. We didn't tell her why we were there and before we even made it back to her office (literally we were walking down the hall after meeting her at the front desk) she said "well, we obviously have some esotropia here". She evaluated her and we've been seeing her ever since.
One of the things she told us is that around 18 months or so it is common for strabismus to either present for the first time or drastically change and become more noticable/recognizable. So it sounds like your LO is right there in the window of time where this gets noticed/diagnosed.
For DD's eyes we are patching for now. We alternate which eye we patch every day (since both eyes cross). We try to vary the activities we have her engage in depending on which eye is patched ... so she works on near and far focusing. She doesn't wear the patch when she goes to gym class or on playdates to playgrounds. They want her eyes unpatched for large gross motor activity to try to force the eyes to have to work together. We started out patching 2 hours a day and then moved up to now between 5 - 6 (but up to as many as 8) hours a day. We try to put the patch on her when she is just getting up in the morning or even before she has woken up so she is less likely to fight it. She has gotten to the point where she actualy likes to have the eye patched and doesn't want us to remove it.
I'm sorry this was so long. But please feel free to page me here and/or on the preemie board (I would probably see the page easier on the preemie board) if you have any questions.
I hope you get some good information from the eye doctor you see this. You might ask (if you don't know already) if this is a doctor that specializes in vision therapy. Good luck!
Thanks for this post. That is a lot of great information!
You're welsome. I should also add that at her last appointment a few weeks ago they tested her visual acuity and her acuity is actually quite good. They made it all the way to the bottom of the card of pictures (to the smallest row) with her accurately pointing to the hand or bird or whatever picture they wanted her to - with both eyes. So her vision is great in both eyes! She just has one that is "dedicated" to near vision and one that is "dedicated" to far vision --- most of the time. It is like her brain is shutting off the input from the "weak" eye and just working with the stronger one because it is easier. The problem is that this can lead to double vision an other problems ... aside from the aesthetic issues of the crossing itself.
Sorry this is a late reply but better late than never!
We noticed my DD's eyes crossing (one or the other, sometimes together)from birth but were always told that it can take up to age 4 months or so for their vision to get straightened out. She also had a head nod that I kept saying had to do with her vision (looked like she always was nodding her head "yes"). Well at her 3-4 month appointment it was NO better so I asked for a referral to the eye doctor. They finally gave it to us and we saw the pediatric opthalamologist at 5 months. They dilated her eyes and checked them out with all of the different prisms, ect that they use. They said she had strabismus and needed glasses and patching as the first and least drastic step so she got her glasses about 2 weeks later and wore them for a month (then wouldn't wear them AT ALL). Her follow-up was at 6 weeks from her first exam. We noticed NO change at all, even when she was wearing the glasses so the doctor said the only other option was surgery. She had the surgery at 7.5 months and it changed her life...she woke up from the surgery and for the first time actually looked straight at us. The procedure took about an hour total, including from when they took her from us to when the dr came and said they were finished. The procedure included cutting the muscles on the insides of the eyes and reattatching them 5-6 millimeters behind where they were originally to give her more range of motion. The first few days her eyes would kind of go out but she had to work up the eye strength and has had great eyes ever since. Her head nodding quit and she is a changed kid (used to be SO fussy but I'm sure she had a constant headache from being cross-eyed). She goes in for her 18 month checkup next week and I'm going to ask for a referral to opthalamology to get a re-check to make sure everything is going ok but so far, so good. When she gets extremely tired or just wakes up her eyes wander just a little bit but she catches herself and fixes it. She might need glasses/more patching down the road but for now she's great. Hope this helps and gives you another perspective on it! You can email me at sncc04 @ gmail.com if you have any more questions about it. Make sure you see a pedi eye doctor, too...they are great! Good luck!