New glasses for DD - are there any optomitrists or glasses savvy parents about?

[Astrophe]

DD is almost 7. Apparently shes "significantly" long sighted (3.25? Means nothing to me..) and needs glasses which we've ordered,. Opto has said that she should wear them all the time though, at least initially. This has confused me, as I though long sighted means she can see distance (eg the board in the classroom) but not close up (eg books). So wouldn't the glasses cause her distance vision to be fuzzy?

There was no mention of any other problems apart from the lig sightedness. I had DS and DD2 with me at the time of the appointment so wasn't thinking clearly about asking for information - just tryting to stop DD2 from trashing the shop!

I'll discuss it further when we collect the glasses next week, but can anyone enlighten me in the mentime?

TIA :)

dd (7.6years) is long sighted +4.5 and +6 (I think) - the higher the number the worse the sight is. The glasses will be tailored so that she can see at both long and short distance. DD has worn specs since she was 18 months so we have been for lots of appointments!!

We were always told that glasses helped to support the eye muscles while they were developing and can help to improve their strength therefore important to wear them all the time.

By the age of 9 or 10 the eye muscles are fully developed so it's important to give them as much support as possible before this age.

Both my DDs had glasses from a very young age and had prescritions of at least +5. When they got to year 2 ish and needed the board more they were prescribed vary/ bi focals but then as they got older (around 10 I think) these were not needed any more as the prescrition came down (DD2 now has a prescription of+1.25 down from 6.5!) and the optician said their eyes were able to compensate for the distance vision.

Now aged 12 and 14 they only need glasses for close up work.

However if you are concerned just ask the optician who will be able to put your mind at rest.

Assuming the glasses are prescribed correctly, she'll be clear at both distance and near with them on.

People who are long sighted may see better in the distance than at near (relatively speaking) but will still benefit from glasses.

@BrigitBigKnickers

It's actually (even in lay terms) the nerve connections between the eye and brain that are strengthening up till the age of 9 or 10 (roughly speaking).

After that, most of the vision is fixed and things like lazy eyes (amblyopia) and turns in the eye (strabismus) don't often happen.

These connections, and the clearer vision glasses can provide, can help control problems of the eye muscles.
But they're not being strengthened themselves.

I'd apologise for being a pedant but I'm really not sorry.
I am sorry if the correction offends though.

Thanks everyone. I'll def discuss it when we collect the glassses, but as I'll have the little two DC with me then as well, I thought i'd be as well informed as I can be beforehand!

So it sounds as though the wearing them all the time thing is not uncommon then. And also sounds as though her prescription is not too significant (I think by "significant" the optician meant its more than normal for her age, as apparently its common for kids of this age to be a bit long signted but to grow out of it?).

Her vision was 3.25 in each eye, but the glasses she has been prescribed are 2.25 - something to do with 'making her eyes work' I think? Its all a bit confusing. Just hard to know if we are doing the right thing as I really know nothing at all about eyes. Dh wears glasses but for an entirely different reason so hes not much help either!

Not at all DBennet- it's the way the optician explained it to me- I remember her using the term "eye muscles". Perhaps she thought I was too dim to understand the proper terms.

I do very much remember her making the analogy that glasses were like a splint on a broken leg- supporting the eyes till they were fully developed.

If this is incorrect then I have been misinformed!

tmmj - well 'm a bit concernedthat she wont like waearing them all the time - but more than that I am confused because I thought that looking through reading glasses at things in the distance would make the distance vision blurred.

I have worn glasses since an early age. I originally had the NHS thick rimmed glasses which my dad laughed at the first time he saw me in them. I never wore them again. The next day he took me out and bought me a thin gold rimmed pair which I agreed to wear. SO what I am saying is make it a positive thing, tell her they suit her, make her look clever etc.

Her long sight vision is being corrected to "normal" vision. So by wearing the glasses the lenses will correct her vision to be like yours (I am assuming you have normal vision which doesn't require) so distance and close up will be seen as clearly as you eyes see it. Hope that makes a bit of sense.

whoops - doesn't require correction

"I thought that looking through reading glasses at things in the distance would make the distance vision blurred"

Ah, I see.

You're getting mixed up between presbyopia (everyone needed extra reading help at around 45 caused by the lens inside the eye getting too big to move) and hypermetropia (blurriness, worse at close, caused by the eye being too small for the correct focusing of light).

For the former you are correct.

But your daughter has the latter.

Dbennet and Mcdreamy - thanks for clearing that up! Ok, so her vission for all distances should be 'normal' with the glasses on.

But what could the benefit be of her wearing them outside in the playground, if she already sees well there?

TTMJ - yes, we are being very positive etc, and she is reasonably happy so far (haven't got them yet though!).

She chose 2 pairs, with thin frames, one blue, one purplem with a little Mr man charactor on the side of each. Another girl at school has a pair with a mr man too, so I think she thinks that will be cool :) Shes a bit of an anzious child by nature though - doesn't like to stand out.

I saw the orthoptist today for my DS as I am horrendously shortsighted so they are keeping an eye on him so they can make sure they get it corrected asap.

She said something interesting re: short vs long sight which might shed some light on your issue.

She said that when a child is short sighted they put specs on and their vision is immediately corrected. They don't have to wear them all the time for this reason. However, if a child is long sighted, they have to wear their glasses all the time as they are effectively relearning how to see. This is also why long sight can get better over time.

Agree with being positive about it. I hated wearing glasses as a child but they were bloody awful in the 80s. They are much better now and have lost much of their stigma as far as I can tell. I'm actually wearing a child's frame now.

It's not clear to why she would see well in the playground, more well enough to get by as there is less detail there.

As to why full time wear, rather than task dependent, a lot of it is about adaption.

Your DD is likely over-working the ciliary muscle inside her eye in an attempt to make things clear.
The glasses will enable this to relax.

Time without the glasses will force this muscle to strain again and set the adaption back.

It's also more time with a clear image in both eyes, which is what the brain needs to perfect the connections between the eyes and it.

I don't think you should be too concerned about her liking them.
Glasses really aren't the social stigma that they used to be.

In fact, I come into contact with more children who are disappointed by not getting them than children who are upset by them.

"She said that when a child is short sighted they put specs on and their vision is immediately corrected. They don't have to wear them all the time for this reason. However, if a child is long sighted, they have to wear their glasses all the time as they are effectively relearning how to see. This is also why long sight can get better over time."

I can't decide if it's a useful analogy or not.
But either way it's not very accurate.

Slightly and moderately short-sighted children without glasses still see clearly for close work.
This gives them enough detail to drive the eye-brain connections that are important to set at young age.

A child who is significantly long sighted can't sustain a clear image to enable this to happen.
This coupled with the need to ensure the ciliary muscle is relaxed for comfort/adaption reasons mean full time wear is more likely.

If your child has high enough levels of shirt-sightedness (-4.00DS in the Royal College of Ophthalmologists guidance) they will need to wear the glasses all the time to minimise the risk of a lazy eye (amblyopia developing).

I do feel the part of my brain that deals in pedantics is getting a wing a work out in this thread...

lol DBennt - you are obviously in the know :)

Thanks everyone. Its good to know that what we've been told (and sold!) fits in with what others know. Just want to make wise decisions for DD now and for long term good vision.

yes, it will be interesting and hopefully good to see her enjoying better vision! We took her to be tested because her teacher wondered whether she might not be seeing the board very well as she was day dreaming a bit! As I suspected, the daydreaming cannot be blamed on poor vision, but she doesn't see her close work well, and now that I know that I realise just how close she holds her reading books etc. So I do hope she will find thinsg easier with the glasses, and I do hope she doesn't take too long to get used to them. As I said, she can be a bit of a worrier and doesn't like to stand out, and there are only 2 other kids in her class with glasses I think - and both of them boys although girls in other classes wear them of course).

She really does look very sweet in them though - I can gush without trying as I think she looks great.

DBennet - the first time we went to be tested she was very disapointed not to be prescribed glasses (as they wanted us to come back in 2 months to check again, and using the eye drops this time), but when she was prescribed them this time, she had a mixture of excitement and anxiety, bless her.

ok - she has the glasses, looks great, coped well at school today...but she says they make her distance vision very fuzzy. She told the optometrist who seems surprised, but said it would settle down, and that she must where them as close to full time as possible, but today she had to take them off in class because she couldn't see the white board through them.

I am a bit long sighted too - not as bad as DD (wore glasses briefly as a child, but don't now), and when I look through her glasses at things more than 2 metres away its terribly blury. But if I look at a book, they are great (which may mean nothing, as I know they are not meant for my eyes, but...).

So my plan is to give it a week or so and see what heppens, but it doesn;t really sound quite right to me.

What your daughter is experiencing is the time it takes to relax out the ciliary muscle which, until now, was over-working to maintain clear vision.

This can be a fairly standard reaction to long-sighted prescriptions but of course seems, at this moment, exactly like the prescription is not right for her.

This is of course possible but can't be inferred from what is occurring right now.

Giving them a couple of weeks of full-time wear is sensible, after that head back if they're not better is as well.

P.S. This bit may seem a bit rude but I never understand the astonishingly common occurring of parents trying on their kids glasses to see if they're correct.
Can I ask why you did?

lol DBennet - I know, its mad (to try on her specs). But I do know I am a bit long sighted too and used to wear glasses (granted, 15 years ago) for the "same" problem (no idea if my prescription was the same then, and obv it could be different now anyway...). I figured maybe we'd see similar things through the glasses. And figured that as the close vision was crystal clear for me (through the glasses), as she says it is for her, that perhaps we would see similar things at longer distance too.

But I grant you, there is no very clear logic :)

I think though, as a parent, you just try to understand what you child is seeing/not seeing, and to understand it as best you can, and so possibly do daft things to try to understand. Its quite difficult when you have no knowledge of eyes or optometry, and I must say that even when I went back and asked lots fo questions, the optometrist we saw was really not that good at explaining things to me, although she did try.

When I collecetd the glasses, the lady who did the fitting and adjusting (not the optometrist - don't know what this womans training would have been?), tried to tell me that DD's glasses were to correct her distance vision, not her reading. I said "but I though she is long sighted", and she said "yes, thats what long sighted is"...which threw me into even more confusion!

I'm really not as stupid as I possibly seem, but am becomming a bit paranoid about getting this wrong for DD and messing up her vision longer term.

oh sorry, mean to say thanks for that explaination of muscles relaxing. Helpful. But does that mean that even for her long distance vision, which is actually good, her muscles have had to work harder than they should? Why?

Obviously I'm not understanding this properly - in my mind, long sightedness and short sightedness are opposites - like two ends of a line, with perfect vision in the middle/

DBennet - sorry to ask another question, but once her eyes relax, and aren't straining at distance vision, will that mean that she wont be able to see distance either, without the glasses on?

If you have a glasses prescription at all it's because the light rays entering the eye do not come into focus at the back of the eye (the retina) where the eye can respond to them.

Long sightedness is where the light rays would come into focus behind the retina but instead form a blurry image.

Younger people with some amount of long-sightedness can work their ciliary muscle (normally only used for close work) for distance vision, thus making the distance vision clearer.

Because they need this ability (called accommodation) for close work, and there is only a certain amount of it we're able to do, using it for distance will make close vision harder.

I hope that helps explain why her ciliary muscle having to work for distance when it shouldn't.

Your second question is harder to answer, mainly because I'm not clear on why the glasses should be worn.

You went to the opticians because her teacher was concerned that her distance vision wasn't good.

But you said it is, and I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that this was from related to her performance on the opticians test.

You haven't mentioned any other reasons why the glasses were prescribed and thus I can't try and help.

Sorry.

Don't worry DBennett, I know you can't really answer without all the info, and I don't have it, unfortunately! AFAIK, from what I've been told, she is only long sighted, to a degree of 3.25 in each eye, and the glasses she has been given are 2.25. There are no other problems eg stigmatism.

Anyway, I'll wait the fortnight, see the optometrist again, see how DD is feeling, and maybe, if we still can't make head nor tail of it, we'll get a second opintion with another opto who perhaps can explain things to us better.

I suspect I am being over anxious. I just feel very out of my depth! When I take the kids to the GP, I can understand what the GP tells me, but this is all greek!

I do appreciate your help. You have at least set my mind at ease while we wait the fortnight :)