Lisa, Marisa--Pediatric Opthamologists! Help!

[alkagift]

My DS went to his 4 month appointment on Tuesday and we mentioned that his eyes don't always track together--particularly when he's tired. The DR said that they should be "locked down" by now and that she will refer us to a Pediatric Opthamologist. I'm scared to death for my little pumpkin and I know you guys have gone through this at a much deeper (and more serious, as I understand it) level. What should I expect at the consult visit with the Opthamologist? What reading up should I do? How freaked out should I be--because I have a tendency to think worst-case-scenario, and I really DON'T want to overreact about this.

ANY advice you or anyone in a similar situation can provide would be really appreciated. He's such a wonderful little boy, I hate to think that perhaps we've ignored this for too long, thinking that it was normal for his eyes to not always be together at this age...


Allison
Mom to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03

[nigele]

Hi Allison,

I'm so sorry you have to go through this worry! Don't be too freaked out, though. If it was a very serious thing, you would have been sent to the Pediatric Opthalmologist immediately. (We were sent to one the very next day.) In our case, Tom's eye was pointing out on occasion and the pediatrician noticed that there was something blocking his vision (it turned out he had a hole in his lens that developed a cataract and he had to have surgery to remove the lens.) If this was the case with Matthew, the ped would have told you right away that he did not see a "red reflex" when he shone a light into Matthew's eye. So, rest assured that is probably not the case. That is probably one of the worst-case scenarios.

A couple of things come to mind when you say Matthew's eyes don't track together. First, it could just be that he needs a little more time to resolve the issues on his own. I seem to remember somebody here telling me their baby had this problem and it fixed itself. I don't quite remember the age but I'll try to do a search and see what I find. A couple of other possibilities are amblyopia (lazy eye) or strabismus. Either may require some patching for a short period of time and possible surgery if it is strabismus. (Tom has strabismus as well and may need surgery next month.) His Pediatric Opthalmologist assures me that it is a pretty simple operation as well as recovery.

Just curious - how long has this been happening?

Here are some web sites to find information but please don't get freaked out!

http://www.nei.nih.gov/health/amblyopia/
http://med-aapos.bu.edu/
http://www.eyemdlink.com/

Please feel free to send me an e-mail if you have any more questions or need some moral support!! Best of luck and please keep us posted on Matthew!

[alkagift]

Lisa,
Thanks so much for the links--it really helps to understand why not one specific eye looks like the one that's off. It seems, based on my undeducated observations, more like a strabismus issue as it's described in the links you provided. I guess it's been going on for the last couple of months--when he was first born, of course, his eyes were often misaligned and we were told that it would improve and eventually become perfect. Well, it did improve a lot, but never completely.

Allison
Mom to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03