i am panicking about daughters eye

[pinkkoala]

can anybody share some info on this, my daughter, nearly 6 has a eye that doesn't follow the other one, it sometimes looks a slighly different way.

she says she can see ok, have doctors appointment on monday, my mum says it may be a turn in her eye, whatever that means, i won't google as alawys end up more worried.

has anybody else's child had this and what is the treatment, not keen on surgery.

is it easily treated. is it quite common.

i am worried sick.

sounds like a squint which is probably what your mum means..

Sometimes this can be corrected with glasses, sometimes surgery but try not to panic.

Does she have a squint?

link here

If so this can often be corrected without surgery - either by wearing glasses, or by patching tho other eye. If you dont want to wait until the GP appointment you could try and get an optician appointment for this week, as they should be able to assess her vision and advise you further.

is surgery a last resort.

you can't see it all the time, only sometimes.

It is my understanding that surgery wouldnt be the first thing to be considered - supplying glasses if they are needed, or patching would be the first steps.

Hopefully you can get some answers soon about what your DD actually has.

The most important things if there is a turn in the eye, and there might not be, is:

Making sure the vision is good (and the eye doesn't become lazy).

There is no sinister reason why the eye has a turn (very rare but needs to be excluded).

The latter is done by the examination.

The former could be done through glasses (most likely), patches (much less likely) and very rarely eye drops.

Surgery would usually only be done after those things to improve the cosmetic appearance (sometimes in very young children it is done quite early but your DD is a little old), and that's only if it's required..

Going through your G.P. is fine.
You should be able to find an optician locally but many don't feel that confident seeing children.

Does that make sense?

Yes would advise going through GP - my DD was referred to Orthoptist at the local hospital and has three monthly appointments to check the glasses are doing the job. I think only if it doesn't seem to get better they look at patching and possibly surgery.

will my gp then refer to somewhere else, i am not sure why it wasn't picked up at her 1 year check, we never had one after that as health visitor said they don't do them as routine.

i am not sure why you can't see it all the time, and will it affect her reading, writing etc.

If your GP thinks it is appropriate they will refer you on - most likely to an optometrist.

If you have only just noticed the difference in your DDs eyes then it is possible that it wasnt there to see at earlier screening appointments. Also sometimes squints are not always obvious, but may be worse when someone is tired.

Any turn is very unlikely to effect a childs education .

And it's really not very surprising that it wasn't found at the 1yr check.
A lot can happen in 5yrs (as I'm sure you've found out!) and the 1yr check is limited by how co-operation you can get out of an infant.

Go to the G.P. they will refer you to your local children's eye department and they will do what needs to be done.

Yes, GP will refer on. My GP couldn't see the squint herself - it was most obvious to us in photos - she'd have one red eye only. We saw an Orthoptist initially then a Consultant Optometrist. In our case our DD was long sighted. Where she was trying to focus one of her eyes turned in. Think it depends on what the problem is whether they need to patch I was told these things usually become apparent from age 2 onwards - something to do with baby's not focussing as well until then anyway.

emmy5 how is your dd now and what did they do to help her.

I had a squint in my eye when I was a baby and from 4 years old and I wore a patch for about a year it helped tremendously, I now have very good eyesight and do not even wear glasses!!! try the patch first as it worked for me!

Hello

Mine is 5 now - she had glasses from age 2. She has regular appointments for sight tests - usually every 3-6 months. These are at the hospital with the Orthoptist. Then once a year we see the Consultant for a more thorough test - this involves putting eye drops in to dilate the pupils - it isn't too bad. The hospital have always been great for giving us free prescriptions for glasses whenever we needed them.

I have found some opticians try to sell us better quality glasses but tbh the free ones seem to be just as good.
She is very long sighted so will have to always wear glasses or contacts. But I have heard of people like mum of 2 terrors, where it was treated for a while and then completely went away. It can be quite hereditary - my husband and my niece both had squints. I think the good thing is that at age 6 she should be quite compliant with any treatment - mine was forever hiding or stamping on the glasses at age 2 so it took quite a long time for the squint to go. Hope you don't have to wait too long for an appointment. And if she says she can see ok hopefully it will be not too bad. Hope you're not worrying too much.

DS developed a squint (left eye turns inward) literally overnight at age 2. From what I've heard they seem to most commonly manifest either at birth, around age 2 or your DD's age.

I went straight to optician as they operate a shared care scheme with NHS so was quickly referred to orthoptist and then consultant opthalmologist.

He started wearing glasses to correct long-sight and they are doing a fantastic job! He's now 3.7 and still wearing glasses fulltime (agree that there are some great NHS frames, we progressed to paid ones, but still only about £15-£20, because they are a bit more robust for a rough & tumble boy)

With his glasses on you can't tell he has a squint at all, without the eye will turn, depending on how tired he is - this may be why your daughter's isn't always apparent.

We haven't needed to patch yet - but it could still be required in the future. Surgery is performed if necessary after age 7 I think and is cosmetic - it will straighten the eye but won't correct vision. If DS has to keep wearing glasses to correct vision he won't have surgery, only if glasses aren't needed (DH is very long-sighted so chances are he'll keep glasses)

We see the orthoptist every 3 months and optician every 4+ months. DS looks forward to it

I was worried sick - convinced he had an eye tumour (extremely rare) - but it is quite common. Girl 6yrs in DD's class wears patch for couple of hours a day, and at least 3-4 others in her year group. The key thing is to get treated with glasses/patch as appropriate as soon as possible - which you are doing

Good luck Glasses are cool now! DD feels left out cos DH, DS and I all have some...

we have had docs appointment and he has referred us to the hospital to see an eye person, she has a squint in her right eye, but not since birth.

he mentioned it being caused by a refractive error, what ever that means. Also said about being long or short sighted. he has said glasses or worst case may need op to straighten the eye muscles.

can someone please tell me what he means by refractive error and what will be the most common treatment, can glasses straighten a squint and help eye sight. we have to wait until the 29th december for hospital appointment that seems so far away.

I don't know what age your daughter is but if the eye is turning in a lot of these are a result of being long-sighted.

A refractive error is just needing to wear glasses, most likely long sighted.

So if there is a refractive error, glasses will need to be worn which should help the vision (if it's poor) and may straighten the turn.

Sometimes the turn isn't straightened all the way with glasses, or there is not a need to waer glasses.

In these cases your daughter will be watched to ensure her vision doesn't go down in the turning eye.

Sometimes, surgery is required to improve the cosmetic appearance.
If this is needed, it will likely be done when she is older as this gives better results.

This all assumes your daughter does indeed have a turn, there is very high error rate in this kind of referral.

Does that make sense?

thanks dbennett-the doc has said he can see it turns inwards, and has referred us.

he said most likely due to refractive error, possible long or short sightedness, my daughter is 6yrs old in december.

are you medicaly trained as your knowledge seems very good.

is surgery a last resort, would other options be tried first, for example glasses, patch etc.

My dd has had glasses since she was about 18 months. I noticed she had a squint in her left eye and was referred to the hospital orthoptist via the hv. She turned out to be longsighted and got prescribed glasses. Her eyesight in the left eye was also poorer than the right eye (lazy eye) so she had patching treatment where a patch is worn on the good eye to make the weaker eye work harder. The patching stopped when the sight in both eyes was pretty much equal. She still had a noticeable squint even when wearing her glasses so she ended up with an eye operation at the age of 4 to correct it. An operation would be a last option after glasses, patching has been tried first.

Surgery can only improve the appearance.

Glasses will help with the vision and can straighten the eye.

Patches can help if the vision in one eye is worse than the other.

So it's likely both glasses and patches would be used before surgery.

But surgery is far from the norm.

And this all depends on there being a turn, which is what you're being sent in for.

pinkkoala - glad you've got a hospital appointment

Have you considered going to see an optician in the meantime (a one who caters for children)? We had to wait a couple of months too to see the consultant opthalmologist but saw the optician within a week so DS started wearing glasses within 3 weeks of us noticing the squint. MIL (retired paediatrician) and FIL (retired GP) stressed the importance of starting treatment as soon as possible (ie wearing glasses) and our orthoptist agrees that this is one of the reasons DS's squint is reacting so well.

Not wanting to panic you at all - our optician certainly didn't need to wait for any go ahead from the hospital