Daughter closing one eye/squinting when reading with glasses

[wewereonabreaaaaak]

My 5 year old daughter has worn glasses for long sightedness since June of last year. She doesn't have a particularly strong prescription and the optician said it's something a lot of children grow out of.

I've noticed in the last week/ten days that she is closing her right eye when she is reading/focusing on something, even with her glasses on. I've asked her why she is doing this and she said it's because she can't see - but I don't know if it's become a bit of a habit for her.

I've booked an appointment at the opticians for next weekend but does this sound like she needs her prescription upping? Around the time this started happening she came home from school with her glasses all bent and I had to force them back into shape. But they are still wonky and leave a mark on the bridge of her nose so didn't know if this is likely to have anything to do with it?

I don't wear glasses myself so I'm a bit clueless. I know the optician will have answers next weekend but it's concerning me every time I see her reading or concentrating on something!

Could you take her in to the opticians before the appointment and ask them to straighten her glasses? That's what I would do. If they're out of line it can make the prescription feel very strange.

Agree with @BakingQueen14 if the glasses are wonky she won’t be looking through the right part of the lens. You should just be able to pop into the opticians and get them sorted. I had to do this yesterday as DDs glasses got bashed by a basketball!

Thanks both - this makes complete sense. I realise I sound completely dense but this is a whole new world to me!

She needs her eye teaming checked as well as her vision strength. If the muscles in one eye dont work as well as the muscles in the other, then it can cause this kinda of thing

Can she read without them? My dd needed glasses for less than a year at 8

I agree with the PP about checking eyes are working together.
my dd was like this and had long sighted prescription and then gradually developed a lazy eye. then had vari focal glasses and patching.
not all opticians do the tests to see if eyes work together. Behavioural optometrist is what you really need. Good luck

@wewereonabreaaaaak just out of interest what is your DDs prescription, is it even in both eyes?
As others have said it could be more than wonky glasses but as you noticed this behaviour around the time her glasses were damaged I would get them fixed ASAP and discuss with the optician while you’re there, they may recommend a re-test anyway to be sure there isn’t anything else going on.

I do this when I don't have my contacts in and I'm looking at my phone, I have one "good" eye (not good really as I'm blind as a bat!) and it makes it clearer when I close the other eye. Maybe the glasses prescription is a bit off.

@Geminio she was last tested in October and her right eye was +2.25 and left eye was +2.50. It's her right eye that she keeps closing.

It's a larger prescription than I was expecting from your first post. I would take her in and ask for the glasses to be straightened ASAP but still keep the appointment for the test booked as well. Was there much change in the prescription between June and October?

@BakingQueen14 I’ve dug out the June prescription and it was +1.75 in both eyes which I guess is quite a big difference in just four months? I remember the optician in October saying that her eyesight hadn’t necessarily got worse although don’t understand why this would be. They struggled to test her in June and she had to have eye drops to relax her pupils so maybe the original prescription wasn’t accurate.

My husband is convinced the glasses have made her eyes worse 🙄

Luckily none of this has affected her reading or writing. She’s reading at an advanced level for her age but I’d like to get this resolved ASAP! I’ll take her into the opticians on Saturday.

@Namechange600 thank you for this information. I’m assuming the opticians at Boots aren’t behavioural optometrists! I’ll speak to them about this when I go in at the weekend.

@Namechange600 we do a muscle check, accommodation and convergence check during a regular eye check too. no need to do that yet!

OP closing on eye usually happens if she’s getting double vision, it could be that it’s just that the glasses are not fitting properly as you get different prismatic effects looking through different parts of the lens.
it could be that she’s developed a muscle problem in the eyes (a phoria or a convergent insufficiency for example). This can happen after a change of prescription or an illness.
either way, she needs a new eye exam.

DD used to have her eye tests done with drops at the hospital as she had a lazy eye. The eye drops should enable an accurate measurement of the prescription required to correct the focal defect of the lens. When you test by reading from an eye chart there are other factors such as how well developed the neural pathways are. If the test in October was done from an eye chart then her eyes may have changed but you’re not comparing like with like. I think that’s maybe what the optician meant.

When DD got her first pair of glasses aged 2, there was still a massive difference between what she could see with her good eye compared with her bad one even though they were corrected to the same level. All due to the neural pathways not developing for the weaker eye. It gradually improved with wearing glasses and patching and is now within acceptable range and she has good vision with her glasses. I found it quite fascinating!

Thank you so much for your replies 🙏

@underneaththeashher frames were completely bent out of shape (so much so her teacher pulled me to one side to apologise as she didn’t know how it happened!) so I’m hoping that’s what it is. But will see what happens at the re-test.

@Geminio thank you for explaining the difference between the two tests - makes complete sense!

that’s not right. You’ve a couple of issues confused. long sighted/short sight (or hyperopia/myopia) is usually caused by the eye being too short of too long or the corneal being too flat or too steep. The lens does play an issue too and We use the drops to relax the lens as often in children the lens is unable to relax completely / drop relax it and therefore make it easier to obtain a proper refraction to determine prescription.

lazy eyes or amblyopia are a separate issue. Eyes need visual experience in order to develop clear vision, so if one eye is squinting, the brain turns it off so that you don’t get double vision and that means that the neural pathways don’t form correctly and that eye can’t see.

did that make sense?

@underneaththeash I did wonder why she didn’t have the eyedrops for the exam in October. It was quite a struggle to get her to do the full exam and keep her attention. Should I ask for them for this exam if it determines a more accurate prescription?

@underneaththeash ok so not lens. I was trying to say a problem with the eye shape.

I get that lazy eye is different but even when DDs was corrected so she could see equally with both eyes with her glasses on, the hospital still insisted she have eye tests with eye drops for another 2 years. They said it was more accurate due to neural pathways still developing at that age. Is that not the case/reason why?

So I took her glasses into the opticians this morning and they said if they attempted to bend them even more then they would probably break them.

In the meantime she has been wearing her old glasses from the prescription in June and I’ve noticed she isn’t closing her eye like she was. In fact she came running out of school saying ‘mummy I wasn’t winking today’😆

The advisor in the opticians said she needs to keep wearing her current glasses because they are the correct prescription but I’m reluctant to do this if they are causing her issues. Hopefully the eye exam next weekend will shed some light on it all.

Presumably they didn't replace the frame because she has an appointment booked? She's entitled to have the frames replaced if damaged and unrepairable as she's under 16. Is she due to be seen again to check the prescription anyway? I feel a bit baffled as to why the damaged frame wasn't replaced if she isn't having an issue wearing the old ones with the weaker prescription. Although did you take her with you this morning along with the glasses? They can't adjust/replace the frames if she isn't there so that could be why.

No I didn’t take her with me as she was at school and I was just passing by. If they said they were repairable I was going to take her back in tomorrow. I guess because we have an appointment next weekend, and I told them the issues we’ve been having, they will wait to see if she needs a new prescription before sorting out new frames.

She’s just read her school book to me and started squinting again with the old glasses 😩Just wish they could have fit her in for an exam this weekend.

She’s absolutely fine to wear the old glasses until the appointment next weekend - ignore the receptionist.

The fact that your daughter's symptoms are relieved by the old prescription but not by the newer one are a sure sign that the new script is inaccurate.

When testing a hyperopic (longsighted) child is is important to carry out a cycloplegic refraction to reveal the true prescription, using drops such as Cyclopentolate-here's a useful explanation: www.optometrists.org/childrens-vision/guide-to-childrens-eye-exams/why-does-my-child-need-a-cycloplegic-refraction/

If the optometerist is unwilling to do that, find a better optometrist.

@WuTangGran this is really interesting thank you. I was confused why she needed the drops for her first exam but not for her follow-up three months later but didn’t really question it. I’ll speak to the opticians this week.

Do they check her convergence as a part of her eye tests? This was my daughter's issue and why she was closing one eye. She was prescribed and unprescribed glasses a few times before they figured out that this was the issue. It's not checked in much detail in a regular eye exam. And glasses made it worse for her. We saw an orthoptist for awhile and with eye exercises her vision is now normal.