HELP - 5 yr old needs glasses and patch

[MamiSandra]

Hi

We have just been told that our 5 year old son will need glasses and possibly patching. We only noticed two weeks ago that he occasionally goes cross-eyed. When he was tested, the optician said that he is 3.5 long-sighted on his weaker eye and just under 1 long-sighted on his stronger eye. The worry is now that his is starting to squint to try and deal with the uneven strength of his eyes and therefore might be developing a lazy eye.

I am so sad and really worried about all this and I have so many questions on my mind:

• The optician said that they do not issue prescriptions for children as young as our boy. We have now been referred to our GP who in turn needs to refer us to a consultant for further testing and to be obtain a prescription. Has this happened to you? How long did you have to wait until you were seen by the hospital? I have visions of having to wait for weeks on end while his bad eye gets lazier and lazier.

• My biggest worry is that at 5 yrs 3 mths it has been picked up too late to get full improvement in the weaker eye? Has anyone achieved managed to fully reverse a lazy eye at this stage? The optician felt that he has probably had a weaker eye since birth, though this was of course not noticable. I am now totally beating myself up for not checking his eye-sight sooner, though he showed no signs or behaviour to suggest that hhis sight was bad.

• Is 3.5 long-sighted really bad, i.e. a long way out? Is there any hope that it will correct down to 1 (which is apparently within the normal range for long-sightedness)?

• What has been your experience with children coming into school suddenly with glasses and/or a patch? Any teasing? Were your children affected by it, i.e. less confident?

• Is it possible to only wear the patch at home, e.g. for an hour in the morning before school and then maybe again in the afternoon? That way, we could avoid the whole being seen at school with it.

• Does wearing glasses affect their participation in football and other sports? Does a child just leave them off for these activities? Or do you get them sports glasses?

• Do you have any experience where children were diagnosed with long-sightedness and only ended up wearing their glasses for a few years, i.e. where their sight corrected itself as they got older?

Thank you for your help.

Sandra

Hello, sandra, just wanted to say hi, and that I've been there!

DS was patched from the age of 4.5- 6.5.

he was something like 8 in one eye and 3.5 in the other, but the patching worked, and he's now 3.5 and 5.25, or something (I cant' remember off the top of my head)

He was never teased about glasses....about 10% of children wear glasses, so there will probably be another 2 children in his class wearing them.

He wore a patch when in went into reception, and so the other kids took it as normal, but when he went back into year one, I asked the class teacher to explain to the children why he was wearing it, so they didn't all come and ask him individually.

Getting them to wear the bloody thing the patch is the hard bit. Tehy will probably give him the glasses first to let him get used to them, before introducing the patch. We had to wait about 6 weeks for our hospital appointment, I think. And then we went back every 6 weeks, then every 3 months for check ups. Don't panic about his eye getting worse...you have about 4 years before it's too late for patching, so there is plenty of time.
I haven't looked lately, but there is so much more available on the web these days to encourage children to wear a patch.
You just have to remember it does work...Good Luck!

Hello Sandra,
my family have been there too, and it takes a whole family to get a five year old to wear a patch. My daughter was picked up by the school nurse and she was over 5 - wearing a patch works because the child has to use the weak et and therefore strengthen the weaker eye. My daughter had learnt to read basically using one eye. At one point a consultant whilst enthusing about his new eye measuring machine gave her a plus 7 reading. The glasses prescribed meant she couldn't walk without falling over. But my clever mum went to the library and found out the consultant's specialist was glaecoma (can't spell it) so we got referred to paediactric (still can't spell) and thus begun a long journey. Her eyesight improved dramatically. I thought the Optomotrist (I give up!) was brilliant, so knowledgeable and the exercises made a difference. You only see the squint now when she's very tired and been doing too much school work or facebook. One good tip is to get a parent to wear a patch sometimes and you can do the exercises. Stick with it and remember parents can't always be a child's friend and you are doing this for their good.

Looking back at your questions - most need to be posed to the medical professionals. `However - regarding wearing glasses - small children (in our experience) are not as nasty as older ones and just accept that some children wear glasses. They are used to grandparents, parents, teachers etc wearing glasses so it's not unusual. I felt more for the little boy who had severe eczema - although we saw him recently and it's completely gone.

Weirdly my daughter went to the opticians for an eye check at 2 1/2 and it was missed. What worries me now is that most infant schools aren't sent a school nurse for basic checks at 4- 5 years any more. Obviously I think its a false economy to stop 4/5 year universal checks and thank goodness your son has got picked up at 5 when patching works.

Football wise - As I recall they don't wear the patch all day, or if she did it wasn't for more than 4 months. I think the most important bit was to wear it during reading and school work - but again, a question for the expert. Top tip for visits to doctors - opticians. Print out your list of questions and hand it to them. LOL seekinginspiration .... and somtimes finding it.

We are shortsighted in my family, so most of our children have ended up wearing glasses. Our experience is that this is no longer the stigma it was 30 years ago, and that it is now relatively rare to be teased for wearing glasses. There are nice frames for children these days, and they are often seeen as cool.

Thank you all for your messages of encouragement and for sharing your experiences with me. I feel a lot more positive now and it has certainly taken the doom and gloom out of the whole matter.

Sandra

Hi, I'm an optometrist and unless your son is seen fairly soon for an appointment at the hospital, he needs to be in glasses soon. Most Optometrists can prescibe for 5 year olds (personally I feel able to prescibe very competently for over 3.5). You'll easily be able to get a local optometist to prescribe for him. Just ring around a few independents and they'll be able.

1. 5 years is not too old to get a good improvement, visual system is "plastic" is mouldable up to 7 so as the difference in the eyes isn't huge, the vision should be easily improveable.
2. 3.5 isn't bad, although if the Optometrist didn't put the drops in his eyes to test them, it will be higher than that. My eyes are 3 right and left and I rarely wear glasses.
3. Patching isn't done quite so intensively as it was before, although they'll want to have a intensive patch as he's come to it.

quite late. Stuff like playing computer games with the poor eye whilst the patch is on or reading, doing any kind of intensive task will help the vision to come up.

1. No he shouldn't generally wear them during sport. When he's older, if there's a huge difference between eyes contact lenses will help to restore the balance between the two eyes if it does turn out to be very great.

So basically, ask GP how long the wait is going to be, if its more than a month, get some glasses sorted out and they alone will help to bring the vision up. The hospital then can commence patching and hopefully all will be well xx Good luck