At my son's physical a couple of D. ago we discovered that he cannot see clearly out of his right eye. The dr. suggested seeing an optometrist so off we went yesterday to get it checked out. It turns out that his left eye is perfectly fine but his right eye is significantly weaker. We have never realized there could be a problem with his eyes as he sees well near and far...with both eyes open. It was only due to covering one eye at a time that we learned there was a problem. The dr. said that his eyes have probably been this way for quite a while and his left one has grown stronger to compensate for the right one. In addition to glasses she suggested patching the left eye for an hour or two a day so that the right one is forced to work harder. I related it to my son as his right eye needs excercise just like the rest of his body.
The real question here is: have you or your children experienced this & does patching work? If it did work,how long before you saw results (pun intended). :-) Is this something we need to be prepared to do for quite a while? The doctor indicated that it may take some time to get stronger and that he should be reevaluated in a year. Your experience is helpful & appreciated.
Lesson learned: just because they can see with both eyes doesn't mean they both work well!!!
ETA: he's 6 & we got him a "pirate" patch last night - he thinks it's cool
Yes. I had "lazy eye" when I was a kid. I still have a weaker eye, but it is far bettter. I am now 45, and just about 2 years ago an optometrist told me that she could tell that I had worn a patch and that it made a big difference.
Play up the pirate thing, that helped me stick to it, because it can get hot and sweaty under that patch. I stil remember it.
This sounds legit to me. I had a retinal detachment in one eye and didn't notice I was going blind because my right eye (good one) compensated for the bad left eye as it was declining. It's amazing the work one eye can do to compensate for the other. You would think I would have noticed I was going blind in one eye but it just didn't happen until a routine eye exam spotted it.
I would definitely give this strategy a try because I've seen myself as an adult that good eyes can compensate for bad ones. I really believe you can improve his bad eye by making it work harder.
Good luck!
Be happy this got picked up because this is one of the biggest things that cause learning disabilites in children. 80% of what we learn is taken in visually. If he has been this way for awhile and compensating his visual memory and some things may already be set up in his brain improperly. I would definately take him to a behavioral and developmental optometrist (COVD) and seek vision therapy and check for primitive reflexes. You cannot make binocular vision by patching an eye. You will acheive mono vision in each eye and get them both to 20/20 or close but they will never learn how to work together for higher order tasks and have true functional vision for the demands of academics and sports. I work with these children and every single one of them had some sort of visual impairment. Convergence insuffiency, fixation problems, amblyopia, this that and the other! It all leads to the same path. Motor coordination issues and cognitive challenges in school. PLEASE look on the website and find a COVD fellow located near you! I do vision therapy all day long with these children as well as auditory programs, reflexes and balance. There is never just one thing wrong because it all works togetehr in unison. It always involves other systems. If you do patch, do at least one hour of near work. Anything with eyes hands like coloring, painting, blocks, legos, building, games, cards, blowing activities to converge the eyes and things like that.
Yes, my son has perfect vision in his left eye and a extreme astigmatism in the right. He can compensate for the poor eye with the good eye. Only problem is it can make the strong eye weak. He has glasses to help it. We were told he is a good candidate for lasik but ill wait till he's older to decide. For now we will stick to the glasses! (What's funny, I have the exact same eye prescription he does!)
How old is your son?
I have been patched, my right eye is significantly weaker, actually it can still only be correctd to 20/40, but my left eye can be corrected to 20/20.
Patching does help. It may take 6 months or longer, the longer you have the patch on during the day, the better chance you have for the eye to get stronger.
Be prepared for him to start getting headaches.
When I had patches they were taped around my eye, like a big bandaid. Hopefully they are different now as those hurt and really irritated my face.
A pirate patch would be cool.
He has to be religious at wearing it or it wont' work, think of it like braces, if you wear your rubber bands then they come off faster.
Hi Sundays,
My Son has been dealing with this since he was two. We started with patching and glasses. He ended up having surgery to help the problem. We still did patching after the surgery as well. He is now five and his eyes are getting better. We get to stop patching for the next six months.:) I just wanted to let you know that it does take a while so please don't get discouraged. Also love that you got a pirate patch, it will make it so much easier if your son likes what he is wearing. Great idea!!!! Good Luck to you and your son.
If it's a muscular problem (and it sounds like it is), then patching should help a lot.
The patch over the strong eye forces the weak eye to do the work (and also gives the strong eye a chance to rest up).
Headaches are to be expected.
If the Dr thinks it's been developing like this for awhile (he doesn't know how long) - well, the longer the build up to it, the longer the treatment - so it's hard to pin point how long it will take.
The important thing is you've caught it and a solution is possible.
Guess he's going to be a Pirate for Halloween.
Keep an 'eye' on it!
(Sorry - I couldn't resist)
