Some quick links for this Monday morning (well, it’s not actually morning anymore where I am, but I tried..)
- Strabismus Survey – Kristal Wheaton is a mother of a boy with accommodative esotropia, she’s also a student at CSU East Bay in the Human Development Department. For her senior capstone research project, she’d like to look at strabismus from a developmental perspective. The survey is quick (I just completed it for Zoe), and asks whether your child can do certain tasks. If you have a child with strabismus, please consider taking a moment to complete the appropriate survey, responses are due on Thursday, May 24. You can also read more in her informed consent document. Here’s the links to the surveys:
- Article on reading: “the great iceberg aka learning to read” – this link was posted by a friend on facebook, and I found it to be a fascinating explanation of many of the pieces that kids need to understand and master before reading. It was especially interesting to look at it through the lens (pun intended) of children’s vision – if a child’s vision isn’t corrected, many of these pieces become so difficult. This is a good piece for those of us who get the question of why a child who doesn’t read might need glasses (yes, I’ve gotten that question, and yeah, it made me mad). I wrote more about it over at the Great Glasses Play Day.
- Vote for the Great Glasses Play Day logo – today is the last day to vote for the logo for the Great Glasses Play Day. If you vote, you can be entered in a drawing for a free t-shift featuring the winning logo!
For Little Eyes 
Hello all,
I’m not sure where to post, but I hope this is okay!
I’m the mother of two little ones with glasses. My son who is five was diagnosed as nearsighted (myopic) at the age of two and started wearing glasses. We weren’t very surprised as both my husband and I wear glasses and have done from an early age and after the first tricky couple of weeks he wore them happily. In the last three years or so his prescription has jumped every year and is currently at -5.75 in his left eye and -5.00 in his right. I am not too worried about him as he has very good corrected sight, although I do worry that his prescription will continue to worsen.
When my daughter (who has just turned three) was six months old, we realised that she was not tracking and her pediatrician referred us to a PO. And then we got the shock of our lives – she was severely myopic, even more than my husband and I. Our PO told us that it was probable that she had congenital myopia and she started wearing glasses right away, although she wouldn’t really keep them on until she was a little older. The doctor wated to see her every three months initially and unfortunately her prescription has increased almost every time. Her prescription is currently at -18.5 -1 x 120 in her left eye and -19.75 -0.75 x 120 in her right eye.
We are very worried about her as we have been told that she is at a high risk of retinal detatchment and that she should avoid any activity that could mean she would bang her head – not easy when she is that age! Do you have any advice? She also has poor distance vision, even with her full correction and it makes me so sad that she struggles to see airplanes or birds.
I’m also so afraid of her future – we have been told that it is possible that she has progressive myopia. Even if her sight does become stable now, it is likely to become worse as she enters puberty. Her PO has recommended bifocals to help to slow progression – does anyone have any experience of this? Do you have any other tips to slow progression?
I feel so guilty – I know that her problems are probably caused by my husband and I as we are both quite shortsighted (my husband wears about -13 and me -15, so I know a bit about myopia!).
Thank you
I
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Welcome Penguin!
I know that a few other parents here are dealing with children with extreme myopia. Do you know if contacts would be a possibility? With that high of a prescription, the distortion from glasses would be quite a bit.
There was a recent review article that talked about ways of slowing the progression of myopia in children. Bifocals were mentioned as one of the treatments that does slow myopia, though http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22161388?dopt=Abstract . There’s also hard contacts worn at night that show promise, though there haven’t been many large scale studies done, and it sounds like there are eye drops and ointments that paralyze the muscles that show a lot of promise, but no studies on the long term effects.
Please don’t feel guilty, though. We don’t get to choose what we pass along to our children, and I have no doubt that your daughter has received some wonderful traits from you and your husband as well.
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Thank you so much for your reply – I am desperate for any advice! I hope that the other parents dealing with extreme myopia might be able to offer some pearls of wisdom too!
We tried contacts with M (my daughter) twice – the first time she screamed and screamed when she had them in (even though we were at the PO’s office) and the second time was no better – she rubbed her eyes and cried and cried. Our PO said that she had very dry eyes which could be why they were so uncomfortable. So for the moment she is stuck in glasses and is, as you can imagine, totally helpless without them. She has two pairs (although I think we will soon be buying a third pair) and wears them all the time – she won’t even take them off in the bath!
Thank you for the link to the paper – I have read it and will take it with me when we visit her PO next week (for another increase I imagine as she is squinting again 😦 ).
I have so many questions – I would be so grateful if anyone could help:
How do you keep your children from banging their heads, not doing sport etc? I’m so paranoid about her having a retinal detatchment.
What do you do about swimming? Her brother has prescription goggles but I obviously can’t get her any in her prescription so she refuses to go anywhere but the shallow end where she can keep her glasses on. I understand that her sight is truly terrible without them and that she is to all intents and purposes blind without them (as am I without mine!) but I would love her to be able to learn to swim.
Do you know about lenticular lenses? Her PO has said that if her prescription increases much more, she will need to wear myodisks (sp?!) or lenticular lenses? What are they and will they make her look very different? I’m so used to seeing her minified eyes that it doesn’t bother me at all, but I’m very aware that she will be going to school soon.
What different approaches can we put in place when she starts school to ensure that she learns well? I somewhat doubt that she will be able to see the board unless she sits right at the front and I think that she will need some of the worksheets and books enlarged so she can read them properly? This is also where I think that bifocals could be helpful? Does anyone have any experience of them?
Also, are bifocals useful at much lower prescriptions too? My son B (whose prescription is only -5.75 and -5.00 is 5 years old and reads all the time – he’s never without a book! I’m aware that this could affect his sight (which has worsened every year since he started wearing glasses at the age of 2 (only -2.75 and -2.50 at that time). He is very bright and a year ahead at school so I don’t wish to stop his reading, just don’t want to make his eyes worse either!
And finally (I promise!) – does anybody have any experience of degenerative or progressive myopia? I am so scared that this might be what my daughter has – she is only just three and yet her vision is so poor even when corrected and has continued to worsen since she first got glassses.
Any advice would be so welcome,
From a very worried Mama I x
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Also, (sorry, I know I said no more questions!) does anybody know if when/if we had another child, they would also be affected?
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That’s a good question. I don’t know if progessive or degenerative myopia is genetic. We were told with Zoe’s condition (totally different condition: hyperopia and strabismus) that any other children would have a 1 in 4 chance of developing it (so far her sister has not had any problems). I’d ask her eye doctor about that.
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