Bad eye sight in DS left eye

[Thurkettlek]

My son failed his eye test at school, he is only 4 so first eye test he has had, we referred to the hospital and they dilated his eyes with drops and looked inside and couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, we then waited a few weeks for another appointment with an eye doctor who again dilated his eyes and looked in them, she said she thought the optic nerve at the back of his left eye which is the one with bad vision ) looked a bit more grey, she wasn’t very sure so got another doctors opinion who said he didn’t notice a difference , she then said it could be a micro squint, I’ve googled about it and can’t find any info so wondered if anyone had been in a similar situation as I’m worried sick if it is the optic nerve endings or something else irreversible, we now have to wait two months for another appointment

[Thurkettlek]

Any experience with bad eye sight in children?

[LittleMissMe99]

My 9 year old had squints in both eyes and is very short sighted. Not sure if a micro squint is the same. But hers were very clear to see. Her eyes would look in opposite directions! It's got a lot better last few years. She wears glasses for her short sightedness

[underneaththeash]

It could be a microsquint - they're actually quite difficult to diagnose. It basically means that the eye has a very small turn in it, so to avoid double vision the brain shuts off the squinting eye. This means that the vision doesn't develop quite as it should.
It could be something else, it could be easily treatable and they'll do lots of tests to work out what the problem is.

However, having one eye with worse vision than the other is actually very common - up to 6% of the population. Children adapt very well to it and the evidence is that it doesn't affect either academic performance or quality of life. You just need to look after the good eye!