Specsavers said my son needs glasses hospital said he doesn’t

[Ajs1111]

Last Friday my son who is 4 was advised to have an eye test as he had 3 headaches in 6 weeks (one of the times he was sick)
Specsavers said he needed a prescription +2.75 in both eyes and risk of lazy eye she was also concerned about his eye health and referred us to the eye hospital.
4 days later we had an appointment but as it was an emergency it wasn’t with a Pediatric doctor. He usually dealt with adults so he done his best.. he tested his eyes and looked at his eye health and said he’s not worried and not to go back and get the glasses. He’s booked us in with the Pediatrics doctor and MRI just to make sure everything else is ok but said not to worry as this is just to cover everything.

I'm very short sighted and used Specsavers for years. I've always found them to be very good. I guess different stores are run differently.

Our ds 8 has just been told he has very weak convergence and marked exophoria alternating - his reading is pretty good but he finds english a bit hard spellings he has to work hard on. Any experience of this? Any good news stories? Feeling anxious for him as it sounds like a lazy eye. Waiting to see the consultant in a few weeks for more tests / excercises etc

I know I’m very late adding to this thread but just wanted to add another cautionary warning regarding Specsavers. I recently took my 7 year old and was told by the optician that she had a ‘lazy eye’ that had completely stopped communicating with her brain, was severely long sighted and that given the severity of her reduced vision, she would never drive! She also referred us to the NHS. As you can imagine, I was most upset leaving there!

We paid for her to be seen by privately whilst waiting for her NHS appointment, she has now been seen by both private and NHS and they both found the diagnosis made by Sepcsavers to be completely wrong! Whilst she is long sighted, with her glasses she has perfect vision, both eyes are healthy and communicating with her brain and of course she will be able to drive!

I would never trust Specsavers again, not with something as incredibly important as my children’s eye health.

@Cati482 it’s not really reasonable to say you’d never trust Specsavers again. All opticians are qualified, registered and regulated. You could get a bad optician anywhere, and likewise some of the best ones I know trained with Specsavers. Sure, it might be better for you to find a local independent with a good reputation (then you tend to get the continuity and can hopefully see the same person every time) but Specsavers is a huge franchise operation and they’ll have lots of great staff too.

we took my 4yo to Spec Savers for excessive blinking. They told me she +5.50 in each eye. But I wasn’t happy with the visit at all as they kept trying to rush and were really impatient especially after dilating her eyes. Bless my girl she tried her hardest. In the end they refused to prescribe and referrred us to the Children’s hospital eye department. We had our appointment within 6 weeks. The hospital experience couldn’t have been further from Slec Savers, so kind and patient. Turns out the spec savers prescription was way off. My girl is +3.50 in one eye and +2.75 in the other, and photosensitive (so spec saves trying to flash a light in her eye repeatedly telling her to try harder wasn’t really helpful). Hospital was shocked and relieved that spec savers refused to prescribe and referred because the prescription was so far out. We just had a 6m check up and there has been some improvement but we are likely to need a patch to strengthen our weaker eye, but we are back to the hospital in3 months. We got our glasses from an independent optician who our consultant said is where they take their children as I wanted to get it spot on. I will only use this independent optician from now on especially when we get discharged from the hospital.

Normally I'd go with the hospital, but given it wasn't a paediatric doctor AND your son has had headaches with vomiting I'd try the glasses whilst waiting for the follow up appointment. They're free for children so what do you have to lose.

Not all specsavers optitions are shit, just like other stores.

I had problems with spec savers years ago.

I was told that you don't actually need to be a trained ophthalmologist to work in one.

I think you’ll see on the thread that I’m not the only person to have experienced difficulties with Spec Savers nor am I the only person to say I would never use them again, so I’m unsure why you felt the need to single out my post specifically??
Either way, I’m allowed my opinion as much as the next person, whether you find it to be reasonable on not.