Rec. to All Moms & Request from Parents W/ Kids Diagnosed with Amblyopia

My daughter was diagnosed with "Amblyopia" when she had her eye exam in kindergarten so I strongly recommend children being evaluated every year as eyes stop developing around 8 years old. She has had her glasses now for about 2 years. It is still a struggle for her to keep them on but I just constantly tell her put your glasses on. It will not be easy but as your daughter gets older let her know that she is actually the hero wearing her glasses and helping heal her eye. That should make it a little simpler for her to keep her glasses on. Another thing you could do is have the doctor put a cute little chain on the glasses arms so that even when she takes them off they will be around her neck and you won't have to worry about her losing them. Just stay vigilant though, and constantly remind her to put them on (even when she rolls her eyes at you and says "I know mom!")

My oldest daughter was born with a cataract in her left eye, which caused her not to be able to see out of that eye. I saw it the after she was born, but really didn't think it was something wrong. It just looked like the eye was was reflecting the light in an odd way. We did not "catch" it until she was 5-6 months old when her eye continued to turn out. Unfortunately this caused her vision to be delayed and as a result she still has a "lazy eye" at age 5 1/2 after years of wearing glasses and patching. She will likely still need to have surgery to reposition the eye in the near-ish future. So, totally agree that children should have their vision checked as soon as possible, as early intervention is critical.

As for tips about wearing glasses, I say make sure to pick out frames that fit her face well and are fairly comfortable. If she has some say in choosing them it may help her to want to wear them. Also, at first she may experience some physical discomfort- eye soreness, headaches- as she gets used to using her eye in a new way. It's kind of like the muscles in her eye will be working out. Just encourage her, and be positive. We have always had people ask questions or make comments about my daughter's glasses, and I have always been very matter a fact about why she needs them. I did not want her to feel there was anything to be embarassed about or a reason to be ashamed when she wears them and her patch. Now, she will be the one to answer when a kid at the playground askes "what's wrong with your eye?". She just as matter a factly explains it herself. I've also explained it this way to other kids, "She wears glasses and a patch so that her eyes will be as strong as yours soon." I think your attitude about the situation will go a long way it making your daughter feel good about wearing her glasses. That being said, there still may be a time of adjustment for her. Just be firm and patient with her if she protests wearing them. We tried to calmly, but firmly, put our daughter's glasses on each she tried to remove them. I didn't want her to think wearing them was optional. She has to wear them all the time, but some kids only have to wear their glasses for a few hours each day. If that's your case, then have her wear them the same time each day so it becomes routine and expected. We also give our daughter gummy vitamins as a "reward" for wearing her glasses and patch. We tell her that the vitamins make her eyes healthy, and so do her glasses. Hope this helps in some way. Good luck!

C.

PS If you end up ever needing to wear patches, we have tried them all-adhesive, as well as, cloth. There are pros and cons to both so, feel free to ask if it comes up.

I agree that all kids should have their senses checked before preschool even if our insurance doesn't pay for it. I have a daughter who i deaf in one ear and it would not have been caught until elementary school in times past but now we do infant testing on hearing that is state mandated. There is alot of legislation to have vision testing mandated for children but it has not been passed in the state of california(although many other states in the US have it mandated).

Thanks for reminding everyone,

T. C

Hi J....

Our middle daughter was diagnosed with Strabismus and Amblyopia at 22 months old. We did the patching, and even the eye drops that temporarily paralyze the muscles of the stronger eye (since her sensitive skin was being injured by the adhesive patches)... as well as glasses.

After 3 years of treatment, we saw some improvement and were told to stop patching.

To complicate things, Heather was lacking depth perception. This affected her confidence in anything that involved changing elevations (steps, escalators, etc.).

At age 9, we elected to have the surgery done, since she still did not have binocular vision and her left eye wandered out. There was a pretty good chance that, though her eyes would be straight, her vision would not improve. Her 6 month post-op showed little visual change, but her eyes were finally straight.

3 months ago (19 months after surgery), we had her eyes checked again and she DOES have binocular vision now! (That is nothing short of a miracle.)

My advice to you would be to be sure to have follow up eye exams every 6 months - and if she shows signs of vision problems (or if the treatment is not correcting the lazy eye), see a good surgeon and get advice about the surgery before her 8th birthday. It sounds like you already know that our eyes reach mature development by age 9, so after that, surgery is usually not as effective.

Please feel free to e-mail me if I can be of support... we went through it all so I'll be here if you need and ear to bend!

Take care,

M.

Hi J.,
I too would encourage everyone to have their kids' eyes tested throughout childhood. I started wearing glasses in sixth grade. I remember it being life changing. I probably should have worn glasses for many years...

I have lazy eye in two directions. One eye is horizontally challenged, one is vertically challenged. It obviously wasn't a huge issue as a child since it wasn't noticed until I was older. I wore glasses with prisms in them for ages. It's only recently (last 5 years?) that I wear "normal" glasses. My eyes are quite noticeable to my family when I'm tired. Other than that, everything's fine.

As far as advice for glasses goes, my kids aren't in glasses yet so I can't help with that.

Good luck!