can someone please explain my sons glasses to me, as i'm confused...

[globalmouse]

Ds was picked up in the school vision test, and has been referred to hopsital in about 6 weeks.
He had an opticians appointment booked anyway, so I took him. they did the reading letters from a distance thing, as well as a couple of things with machines and eye drops. He could read about 8 lines with the left eye and 5 in the right. Apparently he has a lazy eye in the right eye. He has been prescribed +5 in right eye and +3.5 in left eye. Isn;t that quite a high prescription?
what confuses me is that if his eyes were that bad he couldn't read as well as he does (and quite small print), make tiny intricate lego models, be so observant when we are out and about? Surely I would have noticed something??
I don't know, it seems odd :S It's not that I don't believe the opticians, I just don't understand it!
Can anyone explain how come he can do all those things and still need a high prescription? what do I do - get the glasses anyway and still go to the hospital appointment? Argh!

When they picked up my eyesight, no one had noticed. And I couldn't even read the topline of the chart !

Sounds like hes short sighted which doesn't necessarily mean he won't be able to see things close up.

Does a + prescription indicate long sightedness, which would explain why he is observant whilst out and about. I would recommend going back to the opticians and asking for a fuller explanation, and also voice your thoughts/concerns.

Your ds is Longsighted (plus lens to correct) , which in affect means his eye is too short compared to the focusing power of the lens and cornea of the eye i.e the rays of light come into the eye and instead of focusing onto the back of the eye fall further back.(Longsight is more common in children and lessens as their eye grows).

Because your ds is young his accommodation (which is basically the muscles contracting around the lens to alter its shape and therefore focusing power)allows him to see by bringing the rays of light back onto the retina,hence he can see things you point out to him and also his lego.This is ,however,very tiring for the eyes paticularly for close work as the lens has to accommodate more than at distance.

Symptoms with longsightness tend to be headaches,eyestrain and things going in and out of focus as the accommodation struggles to hold the vision clearly.If he doesn't have glasses he would struggle with prolonged close work and it would affect his schoolwork.+5 and +3.50 is significant enough longsightness to definately need correction and his eyes will be struggling with this,as evidenced by the difference in vision in the two eyes.Children don't tend to complain of blur or tired eyes as they just think it is normal,having not seen any different as they haven't just become longsighted but will have been so all along.

A lazy eye develops when there is a significant difference between the 2 eyes so the brain starts to ignore the information from the more out of focus eye and just use the good eye.Sometimes just wearing glasses full time is enough to persuade the brain it is worth using both eyes ,but if this isn't enough patching the good eye will make the brain have to use the weaker eye which then makes the eyes equal - able to see the same number of lines on the chart.

Get the glasses . Wear them full time but still attend the hospital appointment.It is fairly normal where there is a lazy eye to check the prescription with drops (used to take away the ability of the eye to accommodate)which accurately checks how longsighted the eyes are and how much work the lens is having to do.They will be able to check if the glasses alone are working to correct the lazy eye or if patching is needed.It is really important to correct a lazy eye when young as once out of early childhood this can't be done.

Thanks for your replies, particularly concretefeets detailed response. thanks for explaining it, I understand it much better now. They did say they wanted to correct without patches, so it will be interesting to see what the hospital say too.
I've got his glasses on order, and will wait for his appointment. He is chilled about getting glasses, so hopefully it won't be too painful adjusting :S