LO might need glasses?

LunaBug924 · November 2014

At DD's 6 month appointment the doc used this fancy camera-looking-thing to measure her eyes and see if there were any signs of potential vision problems. The scan picked up a slight astigmatism and possible farsightedness, so we were referred to a pediatric ophthalmologist. We just got back from out appointment and it was confirmed that DD is extremely farsighted. I know absolutely nothing about vision, the numbers, or what it all means. From what I can process right now, all I remember is that she's +7 in one eye, I forget what the other was. She said that she could eventually develop cross eyes or a lazy eye because of having to overcompensate to see 20/20. So we're scheduled to follow up in 3 months. If there's no improvement on it's own, she'll need glasses right away. She even mentioned the possibility of a patch for one eye.

I know this is not the end of the world, nor is there anything i can do/could have done to prevent it, but it makes me sad. Anyone else get this news at the 6 month check-up? Or any STMs have a similar experience or stories to share? Like I said, I'm completely ignorant of all this stuff. My head is spinning a little bit, so I just needed to vent.

LunaBug924 · November 2014

Nope, the nurse actually did it as part of her pre-exam stuff. It seemed like regular procedure. Maybe our office is just really aggressive with early detection? In any case, I'm glad to have found out now.

lrmrtn · November 2014

Our pedi group offers a vision test standard at 6 months. Ours is in a few weeks. I'm farsighted and have an astigmatism. I also have a lazy eye and had glasses since I was 4. I did the eye patch as well. It hasn't hindered me at all. I don't even remember not having glasses. I'm sure whichever way it goes LO will be fine. I feel like almost everyone has glasses these days and there are much better options than when I was a kid.

KBowen715 · November 2014

I don't have any experience, and I am sorry you're sad. I do know though, that babies in glasses are a-dor-a-ble. Hopefully the issues resolve quickly with glasses/patch.

smaritz · November 2014

I'm a long time lurker. My DS2 has been in glasses since he was 14 months. There is a FB Group called "Little 4 Eyes" It is a very active group and extremely helpful! Good luck to you and your little one!

britab · November 2014

We're getting the craniocap next week, so there's that.

ArmyMedic7588 · November 2014

I don't have experience of this as a mom, but this was me as a baby! My parents realized when my sitter told them that my eye turned in a lot. I was tested and found out to have a lazy eye (technically I have strabismus amblyopia or misaligned eyes which caused lazy eye). Strabismus is misaligned eyes and amblyopia is lazy eye. Idk if the Dr explained lazy eye. Essentially it's where the brain realizes something is wrong with one eye (either blurry, far/near sighted much more than the other eye, or misaligned like mine) and decides that in order to see better or not have double vision then the brain ignores the "lazy" eye. Later in life it can cause someone to only focus with one eye at a time, kind of like a monocular. It effects depth perception and hand eye coordination.

I was prescribed glasses at 10 months old. I wore a patch for a few years until I was about 3 or 4. And my parents had to do eye exercises with me when I was able to understand commands. Because I was diagnosed with this so many years ago they didn't know much about how to further treat it. When I was 5 and 16 years old they did a muscle correction surgery on both of my eyes to try and realign them and therefore try to fix the lazy eye. Back then they didn't know that the sooner you treat with a patch and things like that the better the outcome and usually it can be fixed. Or even if you do surgery sooner. It's not a major one, I was in and out in a day and allowed to recuperate at home both times.

I know it sounds scary that your LO may need glasses, but believe me eye science has come a long way in just a few years! If you have any questions I'd be happy to help if I can. I know it can be confusing as I've had to explain my eye problems many times during my life. I really suggest reading up on amblyopia. Hope my experience helped a bit. And hope your LO does just fine with all this!

Junebug060609 · November 2014

No experience with baby eye issues, though I do have astigmatism and mild farsightedness myself.

Speaking to you as someone who's got a kid that has to see specialists though, all this overwhelming stuff will be second nature and will be NBD eventually...it just takes some time to get used to it.

Junebug060609 · November 2014

smaritz said:
I'm a long time lurker. My DS2 has been in glasses since he was 14 months. There is a FB Group called "Little 4 Eyes" It is a very active group and extremely helpful! Good luck to you and your little one!

Some of my PAL friends are in that for their kids

delatl · November 2014

I was about to recommend Little four Eyes. A great community for kids with glasses, started by a woman after her baby needed glasses.

danabsd · November 2014

I believe @kitchencolors‌ has experience with infant eyesight.

ArmyMedic7588 · November 2014

@kitchencolors Patching one eye is so that the weaker eye is the one working in order to make it stronger and not end up like me where your brain decides that it's just gonna ignore and not use the weaker eye. Eye glasses help but LO will still end up using the stronger eye and you can run into the problem of only using one eye then. Sometimes, but not always.

LunaBug924 · November 2014

Thanks @kitchencolors‌ for sharing your experience. Do you think contacting EI is necessary even if we haven't noticed any developmental delays? She is able to reach and grab, tracks well with both eyes, and she's very interactive.

Basically the way it was explained to us was that right now her brain is working really hard to correct her vision. And the fear is that the weaker eye may become lazy. From my understanding, if we do have to patch, it would be in conjunction with glasses.

ArmyMedic7588 · November 2014

@kitchencolors no I was just saying (I guess towards you but also in general because of the "easier to get kid to wear something easier than harder..." comment) that with that comment it kinda sounded like you could do either or. Yes, if a child has the problem fixed by just glasses thats great! But didn't want OP or anyone else to think that if patching is annoying (which I'm sure it is, I don't remember much of when I was patched) that glasses can work just as well. I know my parents had little tricks to get me to wear mine. Like I got to pick a sticker each time I had to wear it. But I know that they sometimes have fabric covers that can be put over one side of LO's glasses. Much simpler than putting a giant band aid on LO's eye.

Sorry for the confusion. Didn't mean to come off like it sounded.

...And glitter eye patches? WT actual F!? Who's dumb ass idea was that?!

flockofmoosen3 · November 2014

I thought that now eye patches had to be translucent so some light still gets to the good eye.

Anyway, I hope everything turns out well for your baby. My husband and I both have terrible eyesight (mine's worse) and wear glasses. I fully expect to go through that for baby girl.

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