13mo DD with 'lazy eye'...

[joannawood]

My DD since birth has always had a lazy eye. Her left eye is slightly turned in when she looks at you. We left it as convinced ourselves it would correct itself in time. Now DD is 13mo and still has the problem.
Do i see her GP or take her to an optician?

Whats likely to happen? Experiences from people who've had similar probs would be great, me and DH are v worried about her.

take her to HV who wil lrefer her to eye clinic.

We went to our GP and they refered us to the eye clinic at our local hospital. This was diagnosed at about 18 mths. Ds has had glasses since then and will always need them. We ahve been aptching for nearly 2 years now, to stimulate the bad eye.
There are lots of threads of support here. Get yourself off to the Gp as a first port of call.

We went to our GP and they refered us to the eye clinic at our local hospital. This was diagnosed at about 18 mths. Ds has had glasses since then and will always need them. We ahve been aptching for nearly 2 years now, to stimulate the bad eye.
There are lots of threads of support here. Get yourself off to the Gp as a first port of call.

My dd was diagnosed at around 3.4 with a lazy eye and now wears glasses and we will be patching at some point. We went to the GP with her squint and were referred to the Eye Clinic at the hospital.

I wouldn't have thought it will correct itself so you need to get her looked at.
No need to be worried though, 13 months is early to be picking the problem up and the earlier it's treated the easier it is to fix.

Don't panic, but you MUST get it checked asap. It canusually be treated quite easily, either by glasses or an eye patch over the strong eye, to force the weaker one to improve.

The issue is that if the one eye is much weaker than the other, your brain can "turn off" the signals from the weak eye. This happened to my brother who is effectively blind in one eye as a result.

You need to get referral from the GP, as ordinary high street eye places can't cope with little kids.

I went to my hv who referred us to the eye clinic at the hospital and dd has had glasses since about 18 months (now 4). She has also done patching to improve the sight in her left eye but doesnt need to do it just now as the eyesight has improved. I think she looks cute in her glasses although it was a shock as neither me or dh wear glasses ourselves

I had this when I was little, many years ago. Patching didn't work and my Mum opted for surgery. It worked brilliantly and I'm soooooo grateful to her for getting that done for me. I don't remember the surgery but I do remember all the patching, going to the hospital etc. and have no bad memories of it at all. So basically what I'm trying to say is, even if it doesn't correct itself, it should be sort-able.

Eclipse , that is very interesting.
Please explain, what do you mean by patching didn't work, so you had sugery.
They keep telling us that the patching is to stimulate the bad eye, or else it just stops working and that ds would then only be using one eye. They say that the surgery is cosmetic - i.e it doesn't change anything, other than the the fact that the eye will no longer 'LOOK' cross eyed. The say that the cosmetic look , ie the fact that ds is cross eyed is not their primary concern, and that surgery will be considered later. But that their main focus is to get the bad eye working as well as poss, by patching it , which stimulates it.
Was it all different with you ?

I also had it very badly when I was little and my parents opted for surgery too aged 2 and 3. I had two operations, a lot of patching, glasses...etc. Now I only wear glasses to read, and my vision is very good. It is not noticeable unless I'm very tired. Frankly every time I see a child with a lazy eye, a part of me wants to urge the parents to have a little surgery asap... In my case, people and doctors kept telling my mother it would go away until a friend of a friend's who was a specialist saw me by chance and told her to have an operation asap. Thank God she met this man!

DS3 (3) has a lazy eye. His turns out which is unusual apparently (in is more 'normal' and can sometimes be treated with glasses),

Patching is to prevent sight being lost but doesn't correct the turn- that can only be corrected with surgery.

I refered ds3 when he was a toddler. He's had repeated appointments to check sight development. Which is fine. They now want to operate (we're not so sure as its MRSA city at our local hospital, but it will probably need to be done sometime).

get it checked out as soon as possible. All 3 of my children had lazy eyes when they were younger. They were refered to the Eye clinic. They were treated by patching ( good eye is patched) and all had Glasses. DD1 at 2.5, DD2 at 13months and DD3 at 5.
They are now 20,18 and 16 and only DD3 still wears glasses and that is only for reading and writing.

Yes take her to be seen. Dd wears glasses and had a lazy eye, both her eyes used to turn in a lot and even strong glasses didn't correct it.

She ended up having an operation last yeat which was very successful and now neither eye turns in. She does need to wear glasses still but she has bad eyesight too.

Dd is now 6.

My children have not had surgery as the policy here is not to do it until at least 9 years old and only then if it is really noticable. Surgery does not help with eyesight.

I had a lazy eye. At around 18 months, I started wearing glasses and having patches over my 'good' eye to get the lazy one to do some looking instead of lazing around! Then, when I was 2.7, I had an op... on the wrong eye (which was a bit of a schoolboy on the part of the surgeon!!!) I had the op on the correct eye when I was 11ish. By that time (around 1990) the technique had improved loads so while I have a tiny scar on the eye I had done by mistake, my lazy one has no scar.
The operations were painless and problem free, and worked - I haven't squinted since, not even when tired. And while I still wear glasses, I only wear them for close work and driving.
The surgery doesn't help with eyesight, but it does help with the squint, which I was starting to get self-concious about - you feel your eye turning in (I still remember what it felt like). I also remember going to hospital and seeing the opthalmist - I loved it!
Good luck with your little squinters.

My daughter is due to have surgery soon. The eye clinic people have said it will not correct itself as it isn't because of eye-sight problems in DD's case. It's an operation to tighten/loosen the muscles at the corner of the eyes.

DD is 3.5 and here they do it at any age.

We were told the eyes won't change after aged 7 and they like to do it as soon as possible. We had it done because it did look awful and with her starting school we didn't want her getting picker on because of it. She's young enough that she'll barely remember it too. It all went really well and she was back home hours after the op.

We had it done through bupa as dh gets it from work and it was really good. Her eyes were very bad though, both turned in to the middle a lot, almost right to the corner which also worsened when she was tired.

I'm very glad we had it done.

I had a squint as a baby, and wore eyepatches on and off as a kid. Something went wrong though... my parents say the orthoptist was incompetent, and we should really have sued, but they weren't the type to make a fuss. This was in the eighties.

Anyway, I ended up with very little sight in my left eye, but I can't say that it's really a big deal, I certainly don't count as disabled. I'm just crap at anything involving aiming, and can't use 3D glasses! The worst thing is probably that I'll never be able to drive - but since I hate the thought of driving, I don't mind.

I have no idea what the orthoptist did that was so terrible it ruined my eye, though.

mummeee- are you in the UK? This is our reason for being a bit about the op. DS3's eye turns out. Sometimes it's very noticeable but often it isn't and I don't want him having an op for cosmetic reasons when it's not that noticeable. A lot of people who see him fairly frequently say they hadn't noticed. His sight is developing OK, although at the last appointment they said that he was having some problem focussing and that might improve if the 2 eyes could work together a bit better.

We're meeting with the surgeon soon. I get the feeling they're more knife happy than us- but interesting if there are UK areas where they are more conservative about doing the op. I'm trying to get a list of question to grill ask him.

My DS who's 5 has a lazy eye. I was told there are 2 types. The first (which my DS has) is due to poor eyesight in one eye so the other eye over compensates and has super sight making the other eye lazy.(the eye wonders) Glasses and patching was the treatment for this and can improve/cure the lazy eye and bad sight. My son has a perscription in one lense for the bad eye. He is patched to make the bad eye work whilst the good eye rests. He started this a year ago and his bad sight has improved loads. His orthoptist is confident that by adulthood he will only need glasses part time. Surgery has never been an option for us as the only reason for lazy eye has been poor vision.

The other type which I don't know as much about is due to squint/tick which my friends son has. He is having surgery before he is 5 and his eyesight is fine in both eyes.

I was really worried about this when I noticed it and it got worse before it got better. For the poor vision I was told the sooner it is treated the better so would definately push for referal to eye clinic.

Good luck

personally i dont think i will be having an operation on dd3 eye. her right eye turns in when she doesnt have her glasses on, but as soon as she puts her glasses on her eyes are straight. she will always need glasses, (long sighted +9 in right eye +7.5 in left eye), so really dont see why she should have it done.

we have done patching as last year she stopped using her right eye completely, even with glasses, and within 6months we got her using the eye again, and for now we dont have to patch. we may have to return to patching at a later date though.

my dd (4) is getting her op on 25th March (so soon ) as although she has had patching and her eyesight is about equal in each eye she still squints even with her glasses on. We are getting it done before she goes to school in August.

Please get it sorted and pay for a private consultation if necessary. My DS has a lazy eye and a vertical squint, and had patching, which has corrected it as far as it can be corrected.
The reason I say pay to see the consultant privately if you have to, is that I was told when this was picked up, it would take 18 months for an appointment to come through, which was 18 months when it wasn't being treated. I saw the GP and got an appointment about 2 weeks later.

I was told that DS has gross stereopsis which means he has no depth of vision. He likes this now he's 12, as he always has an excuse for tidying his room properly....oh, I didn't see that bit!

I never went private and dd had an appointment within a couple of months.

You should not have to wait long for a young child to be assessed by the eye clinic where a squint or lazy eye is suspected! Ask the GP to refer to the childrens eye clinic/orthoptist often at a CDC. Most areas have a faster service for small children because their vision and binocularity are still developing. If there is going to be long wait (more than 3 months) you could also see the local optometrist (optician) who should be able to confirm if there is a true squint, and advise accordingly, but it would need to be someone experienced with the assessment of young children.