The latest on Amelie's eye.
At her last eye appt a few months ago the doctor said (once again) her eye was not showing improvement with the patching. She directed us to faithfully patch 2-4 hours every day (again), but this time stressed that consistency is the key. She talked with Amelie about the importance of patching EVERY day and not complaining to her mom about it or forgetting. So we left a bit disappointed but redetermined to do this dang thing EVERY day and get this over with. It's been hard for her, she's tired of it, doesn't want to do it any more, finds excuses to put it off in hopes that I'll forget. Needless to say it's been hard for me too. It's one more thing I have to fight with her about, on top of her clothes, and her hair, and other things. Well, we did a VERY good job patching consistently almost 4 hours every day, I was very proud of her. We returned to her follow-up appt last Tuesday hopeful to hear better news.
Unfortunately, her eye exam showed that there is still not enough improvement in her right eye sight and the patching has to continue. Big bummer. Fortunately this was a NEW ophthalmologist and she directed us to try something new, go full swing by patching EVERY day ALL day for 5 weeks. Bigger bummer. The good news is that I was getting fed up with the last doctor because she never gave us anything new to try. How is doing the same thing again and again going to change our results? I even asked her about patching longer each day and she said it wasn't a good idea. What did she know? So I'm happy we have a new doctor and she does think that this intense patching will work. So even though Amelie is not happy about having to patch all day, at least we have something different to try and hope that there might be a different outcome by our next visit. Cross your fingers for her! She is a trooper.
In case you want to know, here's some info on Amelie's condition.
Amblyopia. Poor vision in an eye that did not develop normal sight, sometimes called "lazy eye".
Causes. There are different causes, but in Amelie's case the cause was twofold: Unequal focus and Strabismus (misaligned eyes). Unequal focus means one of her eyes was more farsighted than the other. So when her eye muscles were straining to see, the right was working harder and consequently overdid it by turning in. That caused the Strabismus. When the eyes are misaligned (crossed) they send two separate images to the brain. The brain blocks the image from the crossed eye and uses the better eye to see, to avoid double vision. The misaligned eye over time fails to develop good vision.
Treatment. If caught early, sometimes glasses is all it takes to correct the focus of the eyes. If glasses alone don't improve vision, then the child must patch the strong eye to force use of the weak eye. Surgery is a last resort.
If not treated. The poor vision in the amblyopic eye may remain permanent. Loss of depth perception.
So "no", Amelie won't be blind in one eye if this doesn't get fixed, she will just always have really poor vision in that eye since the brain has been trained to block it. This would affect her depth perception and require her to always wear glasses. Also, we've learned that it's easier to treat when detected early, and it runs in families. So we are going to have Sawyer's vision checked as well, just in case, and Estelle when she's a bit older. Treatment is most successful until age 9. You can retrain the brain better in children. But adults with Strabismus often continue having double vision because the brain is already trained to receive images from both eyes and cannot ignore the image from the turned eye. Isn't that interesting? Little kids bodies are so adaptable, but adults are set in their ways.
At her last eye appt a few months ago the doctor said (once again) her eye was not showing improvement with the patching. She directed us to faithfully patch 2-4 hours every day (again), but this time stressed that consistency is the key. She talked with Amelie about the importance of patching EVERY day and not complaining to her mom about it or forgetting. So we left a bit disappointed but redetermined to do this dang thing EVERY day and get this over with. It's been hard for her, she's tired of it, doesn't want to do it any more, finds excuses to put it off in hopes that I'll forget. Needless to say it's been hard for me too. It's one more thing I have to fight with her about, on top of her clothes, and her hair, and other things. Well, we did a VERY good job patching consistently almost 4 hours every day, I was very proud of her. We returned to her follow-up appt last Tuesday hopeful to hear better news.
Unfortunately, her eye exam showed that there is still not enough improvement in her right eye sight and the patching has to continue. Big bummer. Fortunately this was a NEW ophthalmologist and she directed us to try something new, go full swing by patching EVERY day ALL day for 5 weeks. Bigger bummer. The good news is that I was getting fed up with the last doctor because she never gave us anything new to try. How is doing the same thing again and again going to change our results? I even asked her about patching longer each day and she said it wasn't a good idea. What did she know? So I'm happy we have a new doctor and she does think that this intense patching will work. So even though Amelie is not happy about having to patch all day, at least we have something different to try and hope that there might be a different outcome by our next visit. Cross your fingers for her! She is a trooper.
In case you want to know, here's some info on Amelie's condition.
Amblyopia. Poor vision in an eye that did not develop normal sight, sometimes called "lazy eye".
Causes. There are different causes, but in Amelie's case the cause was twofold: Unequal focus and Strabismus (misaligned eyes). Unequal focus means one of her eyes was more farsighted than the other. So when her eye muscles were straining to see, the right was working harder and consequently overdid it by turning in. That caused the Strabismus. When the eyes are misaligned (crossed) they send two separate images to the brain. The brain blocks the image from the crossed eye and uses the better eye to see, to avoid double vision. The misaligned eye over time fails to develop good vision.
Treatment. If caught early, sometimes glasses is all it takes to correct the focus of the eyes. If glasses alone don't improve vision, then the child must patch the strong eye to force use of the weak eye. Surgery is a last resort.
If not treated. The poor vision in the amblyopic eye may remain permanent. Loss of depth perception.
So "no", Amelie won't be blind in one eye if this doesn't get fixed, she will just always have really poor vision in that eye since the brain has been trained to block it. This would affect her depth perception and require her to always wear glasses. Also, we've learned that it's easier to treat when detected early, and it runs in families. So we are going to have Sawyer's vision checked as well, just in case, and Estelle when she's a bit older. Treatment is most successful until age 9. You can retrain the brain better in children. But adults with Strabismus often continue having double vision because the brain is already trained to receive images from both eyes and cannot ignore the image from the turned eye. Isn't that interesting? Little kids bodies are so adaptable, but adults are set in their ways.
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