Today was McKenna’s followup from getting her glasses. Dr. Glaser says that he does see a slight improvement and also says that the fact that her right eye occassionally crosses in is a good thing. That since her right eye crosses in, her left eye gets used. He does though want us to patch her right eye for an hour a day. Her next appointment isn’t until the beginning of April so we have plenty of time to work with her on that. The next step of course is then eye muscle surgery. I guess I am still a little unsure about why eye muscle surgery is needed. If she has accommodative esotropia, it is crossing because of her farsightedness. If the farsightedness is addressed with glasses, why would she still need surgery. Her eye isn’t crossed all the time..so I am still confused. I know that glasses can help crossing to an extent but the muscle may still pull a little. But, since her eye is straight some of the time and then at others her right is crossed, I just don’t see how fixing one eye would help. The doctor is great, but I never seem to get the answers I am looking for. I really need to write down my concerns so I remember what to ask when I am there.
Has anyone here had any luck with patching? Anyone have similar issues(farsightedness and esotropia) that were helped with patching and glasses?
For Little Eyes 
We go in again on Monday and I have very similar questions. We have to patch 6 hours a day or Atrophine drops and have seen an improvment in her Lazy eye, but they have mentioned muscle surgery as well. I was super excited to see the patch posters on Ortopad.com and just ordered one with my patches this time! My hubbie and I talked about getting a second opinion if it comes closer to surgery.
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We’ve dealt with strabismus by patching, then drops, then patching again. Our eye doc is very pleased with the improvement, and apparently continues to see improvement even though we no longer patch (the doctor said we didn’t have to). She thinks that surgery is now unlikely to be necessary.
However, I still see my daughter’s eye cross from time to time, especially when she is tired. I’d almost rather have the surgery and get it done with, instead of having my daughter go through life getting teased for her crossed eye, even if it only shows up from time to time.
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Our full day patching / drops has made a huge improvement in her eyesight in the last 3 weeks. YIPEEE!!!!!! How is your going? Any tips for keeping the patch on? We go through 8-10 a day when patching and have found the drops easier.
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amom – that’s fantastic news! It must feel great to know that you’re making a difference in her vision.
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I am so excited, our daughter’s PO finally approved a black occluder contact lens for her patch time. We have been really struggling for the past 5-6 months, she has been so sneaky and clever with removing her patch. She has actually moved onto eating and chewing on her patch. She is currently up to 8 hours of patching and we are lucky if we get a total of 1 hour in. I hope this works or our next step is swimmies on her arms. I will keep you posted on how well the lens works. She gets fitted this Tuesday.
Danielle
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My son did have eye surgery before he was 1 year old. There was a huge improvement in his eyes not crossing. However it was not 100%. His left eye still turns in, we are currently patching his “good” eye 6 hours a day. This has been going on about a year. He has been wearing glasses about 4 months. I see subtle improvements. Skylyr does not really give us a problem once the patch is on he leaves it alone. Some days it is a battle to get it on though. When he really struggles we wait and try again. Somedays we have had to just hold him down stick it on and get him occupied with something else. It seems like once it’s on he forgets about it.
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I am not quite sure why McKenna only has to wear a patch for an hour a day, as compared to 6+ hours as I have read. She is excellent with it, though I am sure if it had to be on for that perios of time we would have problems with it. She is even pushing her glasses back up and if she takes them off and I ask her to put them back on she usually gets them on correctly, usually haha. With Lori’s post it seems that surgery was done, then patching (for a year) and then glasses. That is the complete opposite from the steps we are taking. I cannot believe that after surgery patching for that length of time is still required!
We are hoping that over the next 2 months her left eye will become stronger, though we would do surgery if it came down to it. I would want to be sure though that the crossing isn’t due to laziness, because if it is, it would just cross right back in. Only time will tell I suppose!!
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Can anyone tell me does patching make a difference to the eye turning. My daughter has intermittent exotropia (eye turns out when looking at a distance). I read that it fixes the brain connection to the eye to make it see better but does not straighten the eye. Is that right? I thought in making the eye see and therefore work more it would help with any strabmisus? Any help would be much appreciated. The difference in her eyes is plane in left compared to -375 in right. The doctor said at the moment that did not need patching and we are just going to try the glasses for three to six months to see what happens. She went from -3 to -3.75 and I am just waiting to get the new glasses and lenses this week. We are really really hoping the extra help will make her eye straight for distance viewing. Is that familiar to anyone?
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Ingrid,
Your concerns are very common. They do try with glasses- to correct an vision problems that may be causing the eye to cross. As a child tries to focus on an object (without glasses) the eye may turn, like it would to try to focus on your finger if you hold it close to your nose, so that they won’t have double vision. Persistant problems can also cause the brain to shut of the receiving images from one eye which is what is considered “lazy”. Some lazy eyes also cross.
My daughter has esotropia and we have started with glasses first as well, hoping that fixing her nearsightedness with corrective lenses with straighten out her eye. After a few months with small improvements we have now started to patch her to make that eye stronger and to keep the images from that eye being sent to the brain. Like you we are hoping that the glasses will fix the vision problem, and now we are hoping the patch will decrease the crossing. It may fix it to a point, and like with Ann Z, her child had to get the eye muscle surgery to fix just the crossing that isn’t fixed with the glasses. Does this make any sense? Let me know if you have anymore questions! We are all in this together, and I love this site!! Take care!
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Firstly, what a great find this site is. I just stumbled upon it while searching for a patch for my 3 year old girl, Stella. There isn’t much available in the way of patches in Australia, so I was forced to look abroad online. She too has accommodative esotropia in her right eye due to farsightedness. We discovered her eye ‘squinting’ all of a sudden after she had a fever. Apparently although the fever wasn’t the cause, it brought the problem to the surface which I am thankful for. Who knows how long her eye problems have gone undetected if her eye didn’t start turning. She was prescribed glasses in November, and has been great at wearing them and keeping them on. They must be helping for her to want to use them. We took her to a follow up appt yesterday, and although the glasses are helping with the turning of the eye, the vision in the eyes is not aligned, so we now have to patch the left eye to strengthen the muscles in the right. 2 hours a day, so let’s see how that goes. I will make a felt patch over the weekend, with some help from Stella, so hopefully she is cooperative in wearing it!! Wish me luck!
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Yes guys thank God to be able to talk to other parents with the same concerns! Thank you to both of you. Tiffany, you mentioned your daughter has esotropia and is nearsighted? I thought esotropia was associated with farsightedness? Does her eye turn inward or outward. Would you mind me asking her perscription in her glasses? It does make sense what you have said. We got the new glasses just today so fingers crossed and we dont have to see teh PO for another six months, seems like a long time? I do know he said the plan was to get the vision as good as possible in that eye before even considering surgery and he said he is hoping it does not come to that but who knows. I am just praying the nearsightedness does not get worse or too much worse as unlike farsight it does tend to get worse as a child grows but sometimes it remains stable. THe PO said everyones eyes are very different and everyones eyes react differently. I think he will definitely start patching at next visit if the eye is still turning with the stronger lense. I wonder how long it takes for it to start working? Also when I look through the glasses it looks terrible obviously but I often wonder how it is for her and how if affects her depth perception, she can be clumsy but then I wonder how much of that is just being fifteen months? I would love to see what she sees and I get sad at the fact that she wont know anything different. My how we take our perfect vision for granted, well I have anyway until we have had to deal with this. I dont want to sound negative I am not but I just find it really good to be able to get it all out to people who understand!! Fingers crossed for all of your little darlings. xxx
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