Baby with limited vision in one eye

[Sunflower1235]

Posting on here as a mother really struggling with post partum depression because of a diagnosis my son has received. We found out at 2 months that he has a coloboma of the optic nerve- basically his vision in his right eye is likely to be significantly reduced. We have been to Moorfields and seen consultants who have assured us that “his vision is normal with both eyes open” and that with vision in one eye you can lead a normal life. I’m really struggling to understand how- anyone out there with similar stories? Living with one eye that sees significantly less? Are you able to live normally? Drive? Play sports? His vision in the bad eye is not likely to be corrected by glasses patching etc so it’s an “it is what it is” situation. Would appreciate any insight from people really really struggling with this daily.

I was born like it. Glasses don't make any difference as I still only use my good eye. It is no problem at all :)

@UprootedSunflower that’s reassuring. Would you be able to tell by just looking at those kids that they have sight in one eye? Consultants have again assured me unless you know (I.e teachers etc) the children behave the same as the others

I'm sorry, that must really difficult news.

DH can only see out of one eye and it hadn't stopped him driving or doing anything else. He's not great at reverse or parallel parking due to the lack of binocular vision but otherwise he's fine.

@CornedBeef451 thanks so much for replying! Has he been like that since birth? Do you encourage him to wear sports goggles etc?

I’m blind in one eye, and my son has very poor vision in one eye as well, although it is better than mine apparently. He’s only two so hard to say if it’ll affect him much but I’m fine. My depth perception isn’t the absolute best but I drive just fine (hate parallel parking mind), and drove tractors as a contractor for a while, both here and in NZ, and never came up against any real issues. Sport was fine, I played hockey, tennis (slightly tricker to be fair!) and swam as a teenager/young adult, and I’ve ridden horses all my life. It’s not the end of the world, promise!

That's a lot for you to take in. If it's any help, my DH has limited vision in his left eye and always has. He drives etc and I always forget about his bad eye.

We were told they didn't know whether she would read or write. They later said that the reason she was able to do so, was due to her intelligence and her ability to compensate. She can't drive, her vision is worse when she's tired, and in the dark and she gets multiple headaches.
But she's as stubborn as a mule, refuses to tell people that she's struggling, and is extremely determined.
I know of people who only have vision in one eye, and they live a full life

This is me.

My good eye completely compensates in every day life.

Things I do find harder than others:

Depth perception: knowing where objects are in space. For example when lighting a candle or pouring a glass of wine I would always hold the wine glass close to me and pour from above. I could never hold a bottle at arms length and try get it in someone else's glass!!

Catching a ball / hitting a cricket ball mostly impossible.

Peripheral vision on that side.

Driving abroad. My brain just cannot compute the reversed picture.

@Changeyourfuckingcar thanks so much for sharing that glad to hear it hasn’t affected you much. Is your son’s vision issue corrected with glasses? To be fair I can’t parallel park with good vision lol in the future we’ll all be sitting in self driving cars anyway haha

@CurbsideProphet seems to be more common than I thought! Is his vision corrected with glasses or another lazy eye scenario?

@lovepets she sounds very resilient you must be incredibly proud thank you for sharing you experience!

I almost didn't bother posting because there are lots of great stories on here already. My mother has what she usually refers to as a congenital cataract in her right eye; I don't know whether it is something that in more recent decades would have been operated on. Her family made very little of it - unfortunately she was given the message not to speak up about it at school for example, so didn't get acknowledge of the difficulties using binocular microscopes for example. She did play hockey and tennis fairly well - binocular vision provides a lot of depth perception for those of us who have it, but there are a lot of other clues the brain uses that still work if you only have one eye. She is still a good driver in her 80s. When we were children she did try to mostly avoid driving friends in the car with us though, she didn't want to be responsible for others.

She's always been grateful to the ophthalmologist who told her, age perhaps 7, to regularly close her "good" eye and work out what she could see with the other. For a long time that was mere shadows, but when she got older and the eye became more longsighted, she started to be able to make things out with peripheral vision in that eye. Since as an adult she's had various issues with her good eye, she is very grateful that she now has that small amount of useful vision in the bad one - it would be enough to get around, make out very large print and so on.

@Sunflower1235 he wears glasses (his vision isn't great in his other eye either). As a child he wore a patch for a bit and he had corrective surgery that failed. But it's not had any impact on his adult life. Like I said, I often forget which eye is the bad one!

Hi OP, sorry to hear you are feeling so down, I know how you feel. Different diagnosis but same outcome here, my DS was born with congenital cataracts in his left eye. He had cataract surgery at 3 weeks old, many years of patching and he wears a bifocal in that lens of his glasses but he is still essentially blind in that eye. The vision in his right is 20/20 so like you, ‘with both eyes open’ he can see well.

Day to day it doesn’t affect him really. He excels at school, does swimming and football. The only thing that it will affect I think in the future is if he wants to go into the military say, or be a pilot. The main thing I worry about is something happening to his good eye, or his good eye deteriorating with age for example as our vision often does.

He is only 11 so this is a journey we are still navigating but up to now he has led an absolutely normal, happy life no different to any of his friends and there’s no reason the same can’t be said for your little one, though I understand how devastating it is. I had my second son last year and I can’t tell you how sick with worry I was waiting to find out if he would be born with the same condition or not (he wasn’t thankfully.) Feel free to message me if you ever need a chat.

My last little one (I foster) was completely blind in one eye, they can be slightly hesitant at first in new environments and sometimes prefer to wait for people to pass by when they are out walking etc. Sometimes they hesitate on play equipment when there are lots of other children moving about but you would never guess the reason for the hesitation, they have adapted really well and you would never tell by looking at them. The visual impairment team have gone into their new school to advise, the OT has an input too and while they lived with me we had good support from all the services. I was told there was no reason why the little one wouldn't be able to drive as an adult although certain careers would be closed to them (the armed services was one I think).

No worries at all. No, they reckon glasses won’t do much to help his sight but he does wear a patch a couple of hours a day over his good eye and they’re hopeful that will improve his bad eye a little.
Haha yea that’s very true!!

Just for a bit more reassurance, one of the US Olympic gymnasts Stephen Nedoroscik has a coloboma and he got two medals at Paris!

Havent read the full thread by I have limited vision in my left eye and have had since birth. I do everything others do including drive. Have never had any issues at all.
Think your brain just makes up for the lack of vision in one eye. I don’t know any different and its never bothered me

My daughter and husband can only see out of one eye. They are both fine but obviously you have to be very careful with the functioning eye. They don’t have great depth perception but my 9 year old is fine in school etc and my husband is fine, works & drives etc. Hope this is reassuring x

@UpUpUpU thanks so much for sharing!!!

@NotARealWookiie thank you!! Do they both have lazy eyes? Or another condition?

I have no vision in my right eye, I was born almost four months early and it's a side effect from an operation I had as a baby (the back of my eye is just a mass of scar tissue) I have full vision in my left eye and I'm 42 years old.
Unless you look really closely you can't see anything wrong with my, close up you can see a faint line running straight through the pupil.
It has had very little effect on my life because I've never known any different. I work full time, travel, read ect. I haven't ever tried driving and I do think it's down to confidence with sight. I have issues with depth perception and can be abit clumsy. It's not really an issue though, my husband drives and when he's not about I walk or take the train. I can understand why you're worried but your son will be fine.

It’s not quite a lazy eye as I think that’s muscular, I can’t remember the actual name of it but effectively the brain has switched off one eye due to a visual impairment. I think if something terrible happened to the good eye, there is a possibility the brain might use the bad one but it wouldn’t be good enough to drive with or anything.

One of the orthoptics doctors told me that no one actually uses both eyes simultaneously, but they flit between eyes in milliseconds and the brain processes it as one picture (binocular vision) but my family are monocular as they only use one eye.

Sometimes they can use patching to help young children strengthen vision in their weaker eye, it worked a bit for us but her brain still switches it off.

I’m blind in one eye. It hasn’t really effected my life at all!

@MaybeItsBecauseImALodoner thank you for sharing that is really reassuring too you’re right it’s all down to confidence and what is really important for the individual!