devasted at ds having poor sight

[wishingiwas]

I feel devasted- my ds aged 2.5 has really poor sight (+4.5). I am so shocked as he appears to see fine - has he been going through life thus far not seeing?? Must have been awful.

We have been for glasses today - I cant see him keeping them on and I have to say they realy dont suit him. Sounds awfully but he does not look cute - just geeky. I will of course be mega positive to him and all.

He has a lazy eye too which is why I took him - I imagined they would patch it - but apprently not at this stage - just the glasses which I did not expect.

I know it is stupid as eleswhere in the smae hospital a friend son is struggling with 'real' sickness. But I feel so upset. Even dh was close to tears.

Eye tests for children are free. You don't have to be referred by a GP. And you don't have to go to an independent optician unless you want to - we have had fabulous service over the years by one of the big chains, who have prescribed glasses for us. The advantage of a big chain is that they tend to have a wider range of frames - you can take your National Health voucher and top it up to get funkier frames if you want to.

Oh and I really don;t think it's a good idea for adults to describe children - even their own - as looking "geeky".

Sorry.

Eye tests are free for children but if there is a problem like a squint or strong prescription then it is better to have a referral to an opthamologist ie medical eye doctor at a hospital. But I'm sure that any decent optician would alert you to this.

Under my European insurance I can only get reimbursement for glasses prescribed by a proper opthamologist - a real PITA. If your DC needs to be seen eg at Moorfields then they will be monitored until they are convinced that their sight is stable and so forth, before putting them 'out into the community' ie the local optician.

My son wears glasses. he is the only one in his year of 60 and has been picked on since reception. just goes to show that comemnts earlier like 'kids don't get picked on these days for wearing glasses', clearly don't have a clue.
And he has a squint. which saddens me. has patched, but they say thta it is not bad enough to operate on. looks bad, at times to me, especially when he's tired.
and i myself hate wearing glasses. detest it. but compliment him and put a good spin on it, for his benefit.

so unsupportive comments from previous poster, like, oh well you've got a healthy happy child. as if to say, what's you problem.
that narks me.
yes there are always others worse off than us. doesn't mean op can't be a but shocked and upset by this new news.
have a little empathy.

Oblomov - I'm really sorry. I worried that DD would be teased but she hasn't been. And as I said before, from the age of 7 onwards the short sighted children will start wearing glasses. I think that they don't like to operate if they think it's not necessary because of the inevitable risks of an op in a delicate area. My DD started with a patch but then had a filter which was invisible to any on-looker.

And yes, like you, I don't really go with this 'hierarchy' of needs or disabilities. Because my DD has a very strong prescription we were an eye hospital case and of course I have met children with far worse problems and of course I recognise that they and their parents deserve far more sympathy than I do. But that doesn't stop me from feeling a bit sad when the optician points out that she gets an extra glasses allowance because of her prescription. Or that she has to put her swimming goggles on at the top of the steps down to the pool in case she stumbles. I don't expect any violins, honest. Nor do I say anything when a mother at the school announces that her child is dyslexic and she has decided (without any diagnosis whatsoever by any medical professional) that it is a 'sight tracking problem' requiring extra time in exams in case the eyes get tired. Hmmm... maybe we just need to cough up hundreds of pounds for more glamorous private diagnoses that would elicit more sympathy..

YANB, I was in exactly the same situation with DS when he was 3 and I did feel bad aout feeling so awful about it when there were kids out there will serious disabilities and illnesses.

He's 6 now and likely to be wearing the glasses for a long time. We've all got used to it. I still personally prefer him without the glasses as he has such big beautiful eyes, but needs must and the glasses stay on.

It was hard work for the first couple of yyears thuogh, DS is a rather active lad and we were at the opticians at least once a week at one point, getting them fixed. Also, all the appointments are a bit of a pain. But again, needs must and I've never expressed any of my negative thoughts about it to DS.

The eye doctors told me it was vital to ensure he was seeing clearly while he's stll growing as the brain is still developing so if he didn't wear the glasses and his eyes improved over time, his brain would never get used to processing the images as well as it should.

eek, YANBU, crap typing

OP, I was devastated when my DS1 was diagnosed with a severe astigmatism, he has very poor eyesight in on eye. That was 2 years ago and he has never been teased (he is now 6), there are a few other children in his school and class with glasses.
He is very active, plays football and swims and his sight is gradually getting better in tht eye though will never right itself fully.

I sufered the hideous NHS glasses as a child (I have worn contact lenses since I was 13) and was teased, I was worried for him and also felt guilty I'd passed my bad eyesight down to him.

Specsavers won't test a childs eyes until they can recite their alphabet

YANBU, even though you know in you right mind there are so many ways in which it could be worse, in your heart you want your DS to be perfect and for his whole life to be blessed, just like we all do. I've been in denial about my DS's eczema, and it's not that bad, I could hardly bring myself to say the word. Silly. I wore glasses as a kid and when I finally got contacts my Dad didn't notice - he had long since stopped noticing the specs.

Boots will test them with pictures before they know their letters.

My dh wore glasses as a child in late 70s/80s(really hideous ones), was teased a lot, and as a result has a slightly warped opinion of them. He wore them until he was 16 when he got lenses. Suddenly, girls were interested in him, further reinforcing his negative ideas about glasses.

Our ds2 was recently prescribed glasses for the whiteboard at school and my dh was gutted. All his insecurities came to the fore about glasses making people look hideous/geeky.

Of course, ds looks completely cute in his trendy Bench glasses! (He wore them non-stop for first 2 days and now never wears them )But I can sort of empathise with my dh and the op. If you had a crap time wearing them as a child, it's hard to think of them as a good look!

Lady - my DS had his eyes tested young and with language delay - HV referred him to the optometrist, who was based in community clinics. optometrist had various techiques - looking at pictures, putting drops in to have a good look in his eyes, waving various things about to check his focussing. obviously it's easier to test the sight of a young child who has good speech, but there's still a fair amount they can do.

Oy bellisima. Dyslexia does in most cases affect the eyes ability to focus on text. I should know as I am! Imagine how it looks when I do an exam in my glasses with a purple covering for the text and a reader if I want one!! And I'm always the last to leave with my extra time!

op i hope your are feeling a little better now and both you and DC are getting use to the glasses.

Oblomov, I realise I should have been clearer about bullying. Of course it cannot be the case that no children get bullied about glasses. What I mean to say, but expressed badly, is that glasses are no longer something that automatically leads to bullying. It may be the child with glasses who gets bullied, but it may equally be somebody else. When I was a child, there was always an assumption that a child with glasses was nerdy and not sporty.

Also, schools are often (not always) much better at clamping down on bullying. If my child was bullied, I would certainly expect the school to do something- which again, would not automatically have been so 30 years ago. My experience of dcs schools is that they are very strict about bullying and that the consequences are so dire and guaranteed that it really is a deterrent.

OP you are not being unreasonable to feel sad but its really not that bad having glasses. I am very short sighted (I can see only an inch or two without my glasses and need to have them specially made as they dont do them in most opticians) and I can honestly say it has had very little effect on my life at all. Of course your son has much better sight than me !.

Only thing I did have trouble with as a child was swimming as I just couldnt see enough to be safe on my own in the water - I COULD swim but in school swimming lessons etc I had to stay in the shallow end lol. I was never bullied despite being a short, overweight red haired child with thick glasses! (if I was i never noticed).

Those of you complaining about how wearing glasses has affected your life (couldn't swim, can't see haircut, etc) - Have you heard of contact lenses?

I've been wearing them since I was diagnosed at the age of 8, and can safely say that bad eyesight has not affected my life in the least. I have skied, windsurfed, played on basketball team, played tennis, and for several years, swam professionally.

CoteDAzur - I really damaged my eyes wearing contacts. I tried various ones, but wore them for longer than I should have done; and ended up to a point where I was referred to hospital and forbidden to wear lenses for a few months. The hospital told me my tear ducts were being affected and I kept getting repeat eye infections.

I opted for laser correction, which means I now have 20/20 vision an am hoping for a good decade before my sight starts to naturally deteriorate due to age. The place I had my surgery commented re the damage on my eyes from lenses.

Cote D'Azur - I also cannot wear contact lenses, wore them for 15 years then got extremely dry eyes for no reason at all and now cannot tolerate even soft lenses in my right eye for more than a minute, for some reason (left is fine).

It's a shame, they are really fantastic.

Thank you to eveyone for taking the time and trouble to reply.

Now the dust has had time to settle I realise that my reaction was yesterday was rather immature a knee jerk. It is far from the end of the world as many of your kind posts have illustrated.

Not sure if I am being optimistic but hopefully with him being so young - things will improve by the time he is school age.

You have given me lots of ideas how I can encourage him to wear them - sweets, tv time etc.

Many of you mention funky glasses - I took the hospital prescription to the small independant local opticians and there were just a couple of options - maybe I would have been better with bigger one. But I am sure the ones he is having will be fine for now.

Ladyintheradiator - you need to speak to your HV asap. She will refer you to hospital - its all free. The National Health is Fab - We are so lucky.

wishing, it does no harm to shop around. Some small independent opticians specialise in childrens frames and if this is the case, will have a very good range and will give very good advice on the fit. Some unfortunately don't.
The most important thing is the fit, because if they fit badly the child can end up looking over the glasses rather than through them and if they are uncomfy they are less inclined to keep them on. A good opticians should give good advice on this and have a range that look decent as well.

One of the big chains (specsavers I think) do fabulous childrens glasses and they are SO cute.
In six months time you should read your original post, I'm sure you'll think 'what was I so worried about?'

Hello.

I have the same prescription now (was worse as a child) and was patched and now DD2 has the precise same issues.

You're obviously over the shock, but do push for clarification on the patching. I had to onvince the orthoptist to let me get stuck in and am so glad we are doing it as young as possible.

Also, you get unlimited free glasses as long as you have the broken pair as evidence. Unfortunately the choice in a '1 hour' optician is often not great and even a day is too long without thm when DC has a lazy eye so definitely get a spare. They should only charge you £36.50 for any pair. We get DDs from the eye hospital and they are much less milk bottle bottom like than the Vision Express ones we had to get in an emergency.

Good luck.

My dd1 has worn glasses since she was 4. She has an astigmatism, but has not required patching.

The hardest thing with wearing glasses when very young is that they do get broken. We were back and forwards to the optician several times in the early days for repairs, which were free of charge. Opticians do realise that it is difficult for very young children to look after glasses.

My dd is now 9, and she has a friend of the same age who has got contact lenses. However, much as my dd does not always like wearing her glasses, she says that she is not ready for contacts. She is too squeamish about touching her eye.