wandering eye

[ellemenope]

In the last week it appears one of DD's eyes has begun to ever so slightly float off-center. That is, she seems to most certainly have strabismus, intermittant exotropic (outward, I think that is the right word) strabismus to be exact. The presentation has been very acute. I did not notice this at all a week ago.

I took her to the ped right away, of course. But, the earliest appt I could get from the ped opthomaligist I wanted is in 2 weeks. As frightening as i would have thought this to be, DH and I are being pretty cool. But, it really is so disconcerting. Waiting is hard.

DD is 21 months. Brilliant and beautiful. But, sadly, I am really starting to get self-conscious out in public. It is so subtle, but when 'it' happens it just leaves her looking off. It doesn't help that she is very very shy, and even though she is quite the chatterbox, speaking in beautiful long grammatically correct sentences at home, she just stares dumbly when someone says 'hi' to her.

This is petty, I know.

Oh, I am just so bummed for my little girl. It seems that the best case scenario, she will have to wear glasses to see normally and correct the wandering eye. This will be on top of the large hemangioma on the side of her face. We have a joke that DD would have just been too cute without it. But, now this... this is a cruel joke for sure. She is not even 2.

Above all, I am just concerned about her vision and what this all means. Internet searches have just left me confused. We have 2 weeks to wait for real answers.

(I will go ahead and post it, just in case anyone might have some good advise on the subject, but I have to say this was really cathartic just writing it all down. Thank you so much for this place. )

[2boyzmama]

I had this very severely as an infant, started patching at 6 months old, glasses at 18 months old, vision therapy starting at age 4ish...I wore patches until age 9.

I can't type more right now, but I'll be back. It's not a horrible thing, you'd never know today by looking at me. I do have some slight residual effects, but nothing life-altering.

[2boyzmama]

I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to clarify that when I wrote above that it's not a horrible thing, I meant that for me, now, as an adult, it's not even something I think about. I didn't mean to underscore your feelings about it, because I fully understand how it can feel like "one more strike" of unfairness, and no matter how seemingly mild, it's still hard.

My left eye wandered severely to the point of my brain eventually "turning it off", basically my muscle control was so poor, my brain stopped using that eye. I did some combination of patching, glasses, and therapy for 9 years. In som e cases there is a surgery that can be done, I'm not sure why I didn't have it.

Today I have good vision, about 20/30 or so. The issues I have now are because one of my eyes is near-sighted, one is far-sighted. I also have astigmatism, and diplopia (double vision). My vision is good, but my ability to focus is sometimes impaired. Particularly if I have to repeatedly change my focus, for example in school when I had to repeatedly look from my notes to the black board or overhead projector. For some reason lighting changes are especially hard, so the projector was much harder for me than the black/white board. I will see double for fractions of a second until my eyes adjust again. That is tiresome for my eyes, wears on my concentration, and sometimes causes headaches.

I do not have full binocular vision, I often have to close one eye to see things. I can not use binoculars or look through a microscope with both eyes. The image doesn't line up, which drives my eyes/brain crazy (my eyes/brain continuously try to correct it and can't, which tires me and causes headaches).

An ophthalmologist can see my left eye weakness still, but just barely. No one else can see it. No one even knows that I have any vision problems. I do have glasses that I wear when I start to tire, they have a slight prism in them to help correct the double vision.

The only issue my eyes have caused me as an adult is when I tried to enter the military. Diplopia is an automatic disqualification. I was able to get a medical waiver (but I had to go very high up the chain, very high) and I was disqualified from flying (which was fine, I am a Negotiator, I had no desire to fly). I had a little trouble learning how to shoot, particularly from behind a barricade, the split second of delay while I wait for my eyes to focus when I change my gaze was a problem, so I had to learn how to work around that.

But that was it! I served in the military for 4.5 years and now work in Defense Contracting, at a desk job for the most part, and have no issues.

SO...although my eyes were a mess as a young child, they are very functional today!

[anj_rn]

I had the same condition, but it did not appear until after I was school age. I did the patching & glasses, but I was never able to make my eyes work together. I have grown out of the wandering, but I still am almost blind in my left eye. When it is corrected, my brain cannot bring the images from both eyes so I see double.

Once I had done the patching & glasses for about 6 months, the wandering became much less intense. The glasses never bothered me (my mom let me pick out the frames they were sparkly blue). I did not like the patching much, but my mom would let me choose when to patch (i.e. do you want to wear your patch until lunch and then take it off befor ewe go to the park, or do you want to wear it at the park?).

[karika]

My dd1 has strabismus. Apparently it runs in the family, quite a few of my nieces and nephews also have it. I did not know that when I first saw her with one eye turned inward however. It scared the bejeesus out of me. She had been jumping on my bed (I allowed that when she was young) and I was so scared she had hit her head or something... we ended up taking her to the ER like crazy people.... anyway the eye doctor gave her patches, but she never cared much for them, but would use them when we let her pick out a sticker to put on it, or decorate them. She was 3.5 when it happened for the first time. She got glasses right away, we did let her pick the frames of course. We went to Lenscrafters that first time and I was not as happy as I have been with the local glasses maker. LC did not have small enough frames and it seemed like they were not used to dealing with small children, but the local place had a lot of frames and are very friendly, plus it is family owned. She has been wearing glasses for years now, and the original optometrist told us if she wore them consistently, her sight would likely be corrected by the age of 8 and she could go without them. They are bifocals. I felt the same way, my perfect little blond haired blue eyed baby, how could she have a defect? But it is what it is and I have gotten over thinking of it as a defect, it is part of her journey, whatever that is.

[busymom6]

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[ellemenope]

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I will make sure to post an update when we know more.

2boyzmama-
Thank you. I think you have better vision than me. I am blind without my contacts. (Not really, but my prescription is 4.75 in both. It is pretty bad.) I really won't know anything until the doc looks at her, but htis makes me feel better.

Also, I just want to say that I also served in the military. I was in the Air Force. And, I did fly. (Aircrew, not a pilot.) My husband and I would love for DD to serve in any way if she wants to. This has already come up in conversation, and I let him know that there is hope that she still could. (But, we really won't know anything...)

Karika-
Thanks for the advise. BTW, my DD has blonde hair and blue eyes, too.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I'm so sorry that this is stressing you out. My ds1's left eye turned in when he was a baby. He ended up having to have surgery, and it was really scary. He was 10 months old at the time and had to wear glasses and do patching. Buuuut he's now 11 and has improved so much that he's out of glasses now, because his vision is better. But, he was so upset about not having to wear glasses again that he asked us to get him ones with just glass in them.

The good news is that you have caught it early. The earlier the better because it's easier to fix usually if caught early. My bil's was so minimal that it wasn't caught until he was in 6th grade. By then he was legally blind in the eye that turned in. If they had caught it earlier, they may have been able to help.

[transylvania_mom]

Ds also has strabismus, acommodative esotropia. He likes wearing glasses, especially when he realised he sees better with them than without. I try to make it a positive thing, let him pick his own frames, we plan to see Harry potter soon
Adults always comment that they used to wear glasses, or they have a son/nephew who wears glasses, or how cute ds looks.

Our doctor said ds will have to wear glasses permanently (he's also farsighted), but she said he won't need surgery or patches, which is good. So don't be too upset until you know exactly what your dd has.

[ellemenope]

Update:

Took DD to the pediatric opthamologist this morning. It went better than I could have ever imagined. She screams her little head off at the pediatrician but was so cool today at the eye doc. She only cryed for a second after the doctor dialated her eyes.

I was afraid the doctor would not be able to see what we have been seeing. It is so slight, and I only see it a couple times a day. Lately, I hardly notice it at all. I think I am becoming used to it. It took about 5 minutes as the doctor tried to tire her eyes and it came out.



She saw it in both eyes. She agreed it was slight. DD's eyes are perfectly farsighted for her age, but slightly astigmic (if that is a word). But, under the threshhold for correction. So no glasses!



But, we do have to patch both eyes and hour a day.



I already tried this morning. She has to be the worst age for this. She is strong and completely aware of what's going on, but I cannot reason with her. She immediately took it off and told me to "take the sticker away, mama." We will try again this afternoon.

I am totally flashing back to my retainer days. If she is half as stubborn as I was, I don't have a chance at making this work.

Thanks for everone's help and support.

[OMama]

Mostly subbing here . . .

DS has intermittent strabismus and nystagmus. He wears bifocals (when I can get him to keep them on!) and we are considering vision therapy.

Patching and glasses can be tough to get LOs to cooperate!