Child eye test - very different results

[GreenMarigold]

Last week I took my dd (10) to Specsavers for a routine eye test. She’s never shown any signs of eye problems but I am very short sighted so I want to be sure her eyes are ok.

They diagnosed her as being very short sighted and needing glasses all the time, but said she had no astigmatism. We were selecting frames and then the optician reappeared and said on second thoughts, come back next week for a dilated eye test.

We went back today and the same optician diagnosed her as being long sighted, with astigmatism in both eyes. He said she now needs glasses just for periods of concentration.

Is it normal to have such different diagnoses after a dilated eye test? I don’t know whether to take her elsewhere for a second opinion?

I would be tempted to take her elsewhere

Take her to a good independent optician. Specsavers and Optical Express are rubbish

Independent best

Avoid Specsavers, utterly useless. They missed the fact that my friend had cataracts on three occasions, just issued her with a stronger prescription.

Fortunately she managed not to kill anyone whilst driving around unable to see properly.

Find a decent independent.

Yes it is normal. It's not always easy to tell straightaway.

Our optician referred us to hospital for further testing to be sure. Is that an option?

Both children have a similar eye reading. One does rely on their glasses for concentration and one always gets a new pair but never wears them.

Please take her elsewhere. We went to spec savers as she was squinting and blinking excessively and they diagonised my daughter with over +5.0 in both eyes and actually were really horrible to her (she was 3 and cooperating), luckily the high prescription triggered a hospital referral and she’s +3.0 in each eye and has photosensitivity which is why they were yelling at her for blinking while shining a bright torch in her eyes (she never cried or anything just tried to blink and wiggle away from the light). The hospital told us about a local independent eye shop for her glasses and we are now firm family customers and will be going there when discharged from hospital

It sounds as if she has pseudomyopia, which is when the eyes over focus and make you short sighted when you're actually not. I suspect that the optician realised that things didn't add up and that's why he re-booked you for a dilated eye exam.
In children, the dilated drops give you a better idea of the true prescription as they paralyse the focusing mechanism in the eye and in cases of pseudomyopia stop the over focussing.
What were the first and second prescriptions?

I prefer going to an optometrist rather than an optician for an eye test, because they're not trying to sell you a pair of glasses afterwards. I would definitely get a second opinion.

If someone is testing your eyes,they will either be an Optometrist or an Ophthalmic Medical Practitioner ( so a doc, not sure how many are around now).Sight testing is legally protected as a function.
"Optician" is a catch all name that covers rather loosely Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians ( who deal with frames and lenses) and the places those people work.
There are very few Optometrists working in practices that don't also sell glasses.....

Thank you so much. That makes exact sense with what he was saying, if he’d have explained it as you did I’d have understood! He definitely said something about focussing too much.

He didn’t give me the short sighted reading but the long sighted was .75 in one eye and .5 in the other.

Thank you everyone. Really interesting to hear the negative comments about Specsavers, I didn’t realise they were badly thought of.

I think theyeofdoe has hit the nail on the head but will definitely research independent opticians/optometrists.