tips on getting started with glasses

I’ve gotten a couple of questions recently about tips on getting kids to wear glasses when they first get them.  Yesterday, Rachel wrote:

My daugther, who is 19-months old, was diagnosed with Farsightedness in her left eye (+4.00) with her right eye being in the normal range. I have been struggling with so many of the issues on this site, and it is comforting to know that I am not alone. We have finally gotten a pair of glasses, but now I can’t get her to wear them for even 10 seconds, let alone 10 minutes. I have a very spirited child, and by reading your posts, it has helped me realize that I shouldn’t give up and need to keep trying. We’ve been at it for about a week and I have renewed optimism after reading your experiences. Thank you for putting them out for folks like me to read. If anyone has any suggestions for things I can try, I’d welcome them! (She actually closes her eyes when I put the glasses on now…stubborn, stubborn)

~ ~ ~

[this is Ann again]  I suppose it’s a sign of aging or something, but I’m beginning to forget (or block out) those first couple of weeks when Zoe first got her glasses and I feared that we’d never get her to wear them long enough to help her vision.  Once she learned that she could see well with the glasses, she was really pretty good (and now she’s great with them),  but getting to that point is the big hurdle.  We’ve got some tips on the Collected Wisdom page, what else has worked for you?

Diving into Congenital Glaucoma – Head First

Wow. I finally have something “important” enough to blog about. Thanks Ann for the opportunity! I don’t think I can express just how much I truly appreciate it.

First, an introduction. My name is Stacie. I’m a married working mother of 3 beautiful children. Aaron is 14 and has Aspergers (high-functioning autism), Jamie (my girl) is 13 and was recently diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, and Conner, my 3 year old, was recently diagnosed with “late-onset” primary congenital glaucoma in his right eye. It’s Conner’s challenge in life that brings me to this blog.

If you are anything like me, you have googled and googled and googled until you can’t google no more, trying to find someone who is going through something at least half way similar to what you are. Raising a child with Congenital Glaucoma.

Guh. Just the sound of it. I’ve noticed that medical professionals say “Congenital Glaucoma” in the same tone of voice as they say “Cancer.” I know it’s not cancer. It’s not life-threatening, but it’s very scary all the same.

What is Congenital Glaucoma? How often does it happen? What causes it? Is it genetic? Can it be cured? How many surgeries will he/she have to go through? Will there always be eye drops? Will my baby go blind? All questions I asked myself the first time I sat down at my computer to find out all I could find about Congenital Glaucoma. It’s my hope I can share some of the things I’ve found, some of the experiences I’ve had, and some of the knowledge I’ve gained, plus help parents of kids with Congenital Glaucoma network and provide each other with support.

This was the best day!

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’d like to start off telling Conner’s story so far in little segments. I believe there are huge lessons in the little segments that may help some parents with early diagnosis, and early diagnosis is the key to less vision loss.

Continue reading “Diving into Congenital Glaucoma – Head First”

numbers

Yesterday at church they presented the third graders with bibles.  Three out of the 24 kids up there were wearing glasses. 1 in 8.  Or 12.5%.  It got me wondering about what percentage of kids under the age of 5 wear glasses, and how that compares with the population as a whole.  I mean, it’s pretty obvious that not a lot of young kids have glasses, but by adulthood, a whole lot of us sport specs.  As luck would have it, I was working at the library all Sunday afternoon and evening, so when I wasn’t helping students, I was practicing my research skills by trying to find an answer.

Turns out that’s not as easy a question as I’d originally imagined.  Continue reading “numbers”

Congenital glaucoma support?

Stacie commented on Mia’s update and included a question that I wanted to put on up on the blog to reach others.

My 3 year old has just been diagnosed with congenital glaucoma. . . Are there any congenital glaucoma online parent support groups?   I can’t seem to find one, and am toying with the idea of starting my own.

If you know of any such group, or if you’d be interested in joining one if one got started, you can email Stacie at connersmom @ petersengraphics . com, or leave a comment and I’ll get it to Stacie.

Interview with Dr. B

Dr. Bonilla-Warford is an optometrist with a passion for children’s vision.  He writes the Bright Eyes News blog, and has commented here a few times.  If you haven’t read his blog, you should absolutely take a look, it’s readable, and he writes often about news and advances in children’s vision research.  He graciously agreed to an email interview with me to talk about his career and interest in pediatric optometry, what to expect from eye exams, differences between optometrists and ophthalmologists, and much more.

Continue reading “Interview with Dr. B”

If it’s not one thing it’s another…

We have been anxiously awaiting Teagan’s follow up to her Strabismus surgery and it is finally just around the corner!  This Tuesday!!  We were hoping that visit would go exceptionally well and we could take a break from the doctors & hospitals for awhile.  That’s not the real world of parenting though, is it?

Just to keep us on our toes, Teagan jumped from the monkey bars on Wednesday afternoon and fractured her tibia in her left leg.  After a couple hours at our Children’s E.R. she is now in a soft cast (in case of swelling) and Monday morning she will get a hard cast that will stay on from 4 to 6 weeks.

Fortunately, we live within miles of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, a wonderful facility.  All of our doctors are in one place, which is great (though sometimes it starts to feel like we live there!).  We now have a Pediatric Ophthalmologist, a Pediatric ENT specialist, and Monday we will meet the Pediatric Orthopedic Specialist. I’ll let you know what we hear from our P.O. on Tuesday.  I think the news will be good.  She seems to have far less crossing with her glasses on and off.  I’m hoping she will get a new perscription, because either way she is in need of knew lenses.  She’s scratched hers up pretty good in the 9 months she’s had this pair.  I just really hope we do not need to do more patching at this point.  I think the cast on her leg will be about all I can take for awhile!!  More to come after Tuesday!

I [heart] our eye clinic, I do not [heart] pink eye

This afternoon, just as I got into work, I got an email from Chris saying that Zoe’s daycare had called, she probably had pink eye, her primary clinic was booked for the day so we’d have to take her to an urgent care clinic, which we’ve never had to do before and he wasn’t sure who was covered under our insurance, or even what Zoe’s insurance information was (I had her card with me, which was kind of stupid in retrospect).  Then I remembered that at our last appointment, we were told to watch for mattering in Zoe’s eye, and bring her in if that happened.  Now, I was certain it was just pink eye, since I had noticed a sign this morning saying there had been 2 confirmed cases in the toddler room.  But still, I did want to make sure there wasn’t any greater risk to her healing eyes, either.  So I called the eye care clinic instead of the urgent care clinic.  It was great talking to the receptionist who knows me by name.  Zoe’s ophthalmologist wasn’t in today, but the receptionist said to bring her in as soon as we could and someone else would take a look.  Another doctor took a look at Zoe in the waiting room and confirmed it was just pink eye, not a complication from the surgery, and not anything that would pose a bigger risk to her eye.  We weren’t charged anything for the visit.

On the very unfortunate side, it means we have more ointment for Zoe.  Oh, how I have come to loathe the eye ointment (though maybe not as much as Zoe does).

follow-up eye exam

Zoe had her follow-up eye exam on Friday.  She’s been to the eye clinic enough times now that she just marched in there like she owned the place.  Which the receptionist commented, she kind of does.  While I know that our ophthalmologist sees other children, the waiting room rarely has many kids in it, but Friday was an exception.  There were three little boys, probably all under the age of 5.  Clearly they had not been there often because they didn’t know where the secret stash of legos are kept.  Zoe and I walked over to the kids table, took off the top to expose the lego surface and the little pail of legos and eye patch cards.  All of a sudden, I was the most popular adult in the room as the other boys came running over to check everything out.  There wasn’t really enough toys or space around the table for everyone, so  I managed to snag a couple of legos to keep Zoe entertained.

When we went in for the first part of the exam with the nurse, Zoe was much shyer than normal, and even hid her face in my shoulder.  “We may have scarred eye exams for her,” the nurse commented.  But then she pulled out her plush tiger that Zoe loves when she’s there, and all was forgiven.  Happily, Zoe has full range of motion in her eyes, and very good distance vision.

The second part of the exam with the doctor was a bit less calm.  Zoe was fine until the doctor took her glasses off to take a better look at her eyes.  That set her to crying into my shoulder and refusing to move her face to let anyone look at her.  Her ophthalmologist took her glasses and left the room, saying she was going to clean the glasses.  That gave Zoe a minute to calm down and be distracted by more toys.  When the doctor came back, she was fine for the rest of the exam.  She still crosses her eyes a bit when her glasses are off, but that was expected.  Her prescription has stayed the same, and the doctor thought that while her glasses are getting small, we probably don’t need to replace the frames yet.  So we’re going to try to go another 3 months until the next appt before replacing the frames.

I really appreciate how everyone at the office is so kind with Zoe and understanding of how a not-quite-2-year-old can be, and now to put her at ease. How are your kids at their exams?  Do they get upset or throw fits at the exams?  How is the doctor’s office?  More importantly, how are the toys?

wait, what did you just say?

Yesterday morning as we were heading in to church, the usher looked at Zoe’s glasses and asked if they were Sarah Palin glasses.  Wait, what?  Umm, no?  I was so thrown by the question that I just smiled awkwardly and hurried to a seat.  I still have no idea what the point of the question was.  (As an aside, Bright Eyes News has a post about Palin’s glasses just in case you need to know more)

I’ve been thinking about people’s responses to young kids in glasses, and I think it has a lot to do with just how common glasses are on adults.  Everyone knows someone who wears glasses, and everyone knows (or thinks they know) why people wear glasses.  But as common as they are for adults, they’re extremely uncommon for kids (I need to look up actual numbers at some point).  So there’s this weird confluence of the unusual aspect of glasses on a little one + people’s assumptions that they know what the glasses are for that leads to people feeling comfortable commenting on it.  Maybe.

Still doesn’t explain the Sarah Palin comment.

update on Mia

From reader, Danielle:

I wanted to give an update on Mia and her progress; and to maybe vent to other parents going through similar situations.

Mia just had her 2nd surgery on Tuesday for glaucoma.  After her first surgery when she was 1 month old to have a cataract removed from her right eye, her IOP (intraocular pressure) was high.  She was taking several different glaucoma medications to help decrease her pressure, however her IOP remained high.  On Tuesday she went in for surgery to have an iridotomy (a small hole placed in the white part of her eye) and to also have a valve (similar to a shunt) placed in her eye to help control her pressure.  Her surgery last over 3 hours and there were no complications (thank god).   While she was in surgery she also had tissue that began growing over her artificial lens removed and her pupil was widened.   We currently have to place 5 different drops and ointments in her eye 15 times a day.  We had to create a chart to help us so we would know which drops /ointments we have placed in her eye throughout the day.  She is already scheduled to have an exam under anesthesia in 6 weeks to ensure the valve has opened and is draining excess fluid.  We have a long road ahead of us with many surgeries and exams under anesthesia to correct her vision.

Over the past 3 weeks she has not been able to patch or wear her glasses due to clouding from glaucoma and the re-growth of tissue over her lens, which was completely obstructing her vision.    I feel like every time we think we are making progress, we are set back by some other eye condition.   I also feel like we are unable to effectively improve her vision because we are unable to patch and have her wear her glasses.  We have already lost 3 weeks and I am unsure when she will be able to begin with patching/glasses due to her recovery from surgery.   I feel horrible that she has been through so much and she is not even 4 months old.  I believe everything she has been through; all of the surgeries, poking, prodding, different medications, many trips to the ophthalmologist, will make her a very strong willed little girl.  She is truly my hero.

Interesting fact –  The legendary singer, Ray Charles went blind at age 7 from congenital glaucoma.

Your stories – a little boy in glasses

My name is George, my wife is Alexandra, and our son’s name is Nicholas. Nicholas turned two as of August of this year. Our experiences with glasses, patching, and pediatric ophthalmologists began when Nicholas was about two months old.

While changing his diaper one weekend morning, the sun happened to be shining in on his face when we noticed what can only be described as a slight ‘jiggle’ in his left eye. We looked, looked again, looked a third time…and as any new parents might do…we panicked.

Within a very short time we had placed a call to our pediatrician’s on-call, and after a worried discussion using descriptors like ‘jiggly like a sunny side up egg’ and ‘wobbly like jello’ we had the on call doc stumped. Monday morning we were in the doctor’s office and our pediatrician…also somewhat perplexed…agreed that our descriptors were well chosen. He had not seen the like before and referred us to a Pediatric Ophthalmologist.

What followed over the next couple of months are as follows:

Continue reading “Your stories – a little boy in glasses”

Glasses at school

This came in as a comment from Beth to the Collected Wisdom page, and I wanted to post it on the front page to see if anyone has any good suggestions for her:

My kinderdgartener will not wear her glasses at school (she will for speech only). We have tried everything I can think of. She is fine wearing them at home, but she refuses to wear her glasses in her class and in front of her teacher. She is very strong willed and I can’t even bribe her with something from Build-a-Bear. I am thinking about giving her consequences, but I really not sure that will work either. Any suggestions? Thanks.

patching

I’ve noticed that we get a lot of visitors to Little Four Eyes who come here looking for information and tips on dealing with kids and eye patches.  We only had to do patching for 6 weeks with Zoe, so I don’t have much to offer, but I know others have a lot more experience with it.  So any tips, tricks or thoughts on patching and what works and what doesn’t?  Has anyone had to combine patches with glasses?  How do you get your kids to leave the patches on?  With glasses, it gets easier as your kids realize that they see better with the glasses, but that’s not the case with patches.

health disclosure

We got a note from daycare the other day about a “stretch and grow” class that Zoe can take at daycare once a week.  It sounds like a nice program, it’s not expensive at all, and so we’re going to enroll Z.  So I was filling out the enrollment form when I hit the “Health Disclosure” section.  It asks you to list any injuries, allergies or health conditions that might limit your child’s participation.  And it had me stumped – I just sat there looking at it blankly for a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what, if anything, to write.  I know that the glasses really shouldn’t get in her way for anything they’d do in this class.  But her strabismus does affect her depth perception, and glasses can be a pain at times when you’re exercising – I have to take mine off for some yoga positions.  But it’s not like she’ll be doing yoga or any sports where she might get a ball in the face (I hope).  But what if the teacher saw Zoe in her glasses and worried about having Zoe do things just because of the glasses?  Maybe I should write that the glasses will not limit her.  But that’s stupid, the form clearly asks only for conditions that WILL limit her.

In the end, I left it blank.

Update on Sam’s glasses

Target’s optical shop was open yesterday, Labor Day.  The husband took Sam down there to see if the glasses could be fixed. They could not. But, as luck would have it, they had the frames in stock and were able to just pop the lenses into the new frames.  Since the frames were less than a year old, we were able to replace them for 50% off. Yay.  And since we didn’t have to replace the lenses, it wasn’t that painful in the wallet.

If they break in the first 90 days, they will replace them for free, which is nice to know.