Patching a 5 year old

[TreeBird16]

Hi all,

My 5.5 DD has just be diagnosed as having a very lazy left eye. Aesthetically she looks ok (no turn in her eye) but the sight is quite poor in her left. Her right has been carrying her thus far. We are on a list to see an ophthalmologist privately but it will still be a week or 2. The optician said we will need to patch and she will need glasses.

I'm sure the patching regime differs from child to child but can anyone give me a ball park idea what to expect? Is it all day for months, a few hours a day for years? How as the outcome?

Thanks in advance!

We did it with DS. We started at 2 hours per day for about 6 months, then got told we could stop so didn't wear one for a while, then changed consultant and went back to patching 6 hours per day! (Not sure if first consultant made a mistake, or if DS just happened to deteriorate a lot in that time).

He made a big improvement with the patching, and we went back to 3 hours per day to maintain it, then dropped to 2 hours. We were reviewed every 4 months. DS's glasses prescription changed at least once a year too, but you can get a voucher to pay for them from the NHS. We pay extra to have the lenses thinned etc.

DS started patching aged 3, restarted aged around 5 and stopped wearing them at aged 7. There was a rapid and large improvement at aged 5, then it stayed about the same for probably a year or so.
Our new consultant wanted DS to continue wearing the patch even though it wasn't actually making an improvement, so that he didn't go backwards. I don't know if this is standard practice, or because DS had gone backwards in the past.

DS was slightly allergic to the sticky patches, so we bought cloth patches from meyepatch (you would have to wait until you had glasses to get them if you did this, because they fit in different ways depending on the type of frame)

He still wears glasses, a year on from stopping the patching and probably always will.

my dd is now 14, and did patching for 9 months, it was when she was 6, 2 hours a day after school. it definitely worked, brought her bad eye and her good eye much closer vision wise.

i'm a craft designer and back then, posted a pattern on my blog to make a felt eyepatch, i had trouble getting dd to wear the stick on ones so ended up making my own, link here.

Thanks so much. Your responses are much appreciated. I'm really hoping that we can keep the patching too the house as she is a very self conscious little girl as is and I think she will be terribly upset by both wearing glasses and the patching. I have told her about the glasses but not mentioned the patching yet. She seems to be accepting that the glasses will have to happen.

nipervest, thank you for the link! Just wondering does your DD still have to wear glasses?

owlkiss, thanks so much for giving me good idea about times etc.

My son is the same age and does 3 hours a day except on a Wednesday because he has a dance class. The patches are cool and glittery!

My Dd had to patch for 2 hours a day and after quite a few months it dropped to 1 hour per day before stopping altogether. She had had glasses since 18 months old and still has them now age 12 (she is long sighted in both eyes +3 and +5 in each eye roughly). Have they said whether she is long or short sighted?

Ds would have his patch put on before school and take it off around break time but often he forgot and it didn't come off until later. Think he was parched for around a year. He is now 9 and was discharged from the hospital around 18 months ago. His eye will still go off I the other direction if concentrating without glasses on but with his glasses it behaves itself just fine.

Thanks blueuggs - I will let her pick her own glasses and patches (within reason so there may be glitter in my future. I think 3 hours a day would be imaginable.

Dementedpixie, her right eye is perfect and she is long sighted in her left eye. It was really quite distressing seeing her unconsciously claw at the patch covering her good eye during her eye test.

Iam - her eyes look perfectly normal which is why we missed it I think. It showed up during an eye and ear screening in school.

Do anyone of you do concentrated sight activities while the patch is on (ie drawing, cutting out etc) or do you let them go about their business as normal?

treebird, yes she does. she got them when she was 22 months old, her prescription started at something like +5.25 in her good eye and +5.75 in her bad, she also has a squint and asigmatism. the patching brought her vision more equal and helped with the squint. as she's a + prescription, we were told her vision could improve and it has, her good eye is down to a 3.25 which is fantastic, her lenses are much thinner than they used to be.

Both dd's had lazy eyes and had glasses from 2 and a half. We started patching at 4 and carried in till they were 7. The length fluctuated but the average was 2/3 hours a day. We chose to do it at home as they didn't want to wear them at nursery/school They recommended they did activities while wearing the patch like colouring/writing/drawing or playing board games. This forces the lazy eye to focus when wearing the patch and has been proven to increase the success of the treatment.
Dd1 still has a slight lazy eye the difference in the vision is marginal. The treatment was very successful for her. Her eyes also now move together and look perfect.
Dd2's vision has improved alot and she now only has a slight difference between both eyes. She still has a noticeable wander. We're still waiting for an operation date to straighten her eyes.

Just to add, they hated the sticky plaster type patches + it inflamed dd1's excema so I bought them cotton ones that go over the glasses. Much more comfortable and they have cool designs.
www.meyepatch.co.uk/

my nephew had glasses with a clear lense in one side and a prescription in the other and also did patching, he's now 18 and doesn't need glasses anymore at all.

God I forgot that one lens would have to be clear. I am hopeful that if we manage to stick to the regime she will get a good outcome.

Thanks all

treebird - i was patched, and i've not long stopped patching 2 of my dc. my dc patched for 5 years, and 4 years - around 3-4 hours per day.

The advice is usually to patch during school hours as they need to be doing activities such as reading, writing, computers etc to stimulate the eyes and the brain. Personally we found school easier as we had 2 in patches! on weekends it was touch to keep them stimulated.

Patching can be anything from 2 - 6 hours per day depending on your child....and can change at each appointment.
Around age 8 it become ineffective so most children stop around then.
For sensitive skin you can get adhesive patches specially for sensitive skin, or use fabric patches which go on the glasses themselves.

you may not have to patch btw - our dd age 2.5 saw the optician and has a v. lazy eye, she warned us we'd be patching prob 4 hours daily, urgent consultant appointment the following week gave us the option of trying to correct with glasses initially, a year on she is doing really well and as long as she wears glasses all the time consultant still happy to not patch. her script is 5+ in one eye, 0 in the other.

lots of children wear glasses and/or patch, and adjust really quickly. i hope your dd does too.

My five year old has recently started patching - two hours a day. She has a squint in left eye and is long-sighted 5.5 in each eye. Last appt, they seemed concerned that left eye had started to turn out when previously it turned in. Think they said they will monitor, try patching then vision correction. Can any eye bods explain this? Not sure if they mean different prescription or surgery?? Did ask but there was lots to take in and I was feeling awful I didn't pick up on her eye problems earlier.