Lazy Eye - patching

[alpech]

Hi

My 3 yr old son started wearing glasses for a lazy eye in November, this week he has started patching - for 6 hours a day!

I would be interested to hear your patching success stories - particularly if anyone's child also started at 6 hrs a day and how long it took for them to stop patching altogether.

Alpech

ah yes now ine was.. god was it three hours? i cant remember for abotu 9 months. io started inthe mornign - the first day was tricky then it was fine
ahd a great effect on mine

There's an online UK support group here

DD2 had to patch for a slight lazy eye from about the age of 3 but it was never for so long as 6 hours at a time.

Our optician said it was good for the child to be engaged on close up work such as colouring/ drawing/ looking at books and even playing on a game boy for best results. She told us that 20 mins or so of close up work was as effective as 2 hours patching for long distance actitivies!

But obviously kids eyes are all different and this might not apply to your ds. DD still has a bit of a weaknes and the eye still slips if she is tired but I remember stopping the patching after about 2 years (but we obviously didn't do it for 6 hours a day.)

my dd (4) had patching for a while but was only for 2 hours a day which went down to 1 hour after quite a few months. The patching is to strengthen the sight in the lazy eye to bring it up to the same level of sight in the 'good' eye - so it probably depends on how poor the eyesight in that eye is and would maybe determine how long they have to patch for each day. I would say that dd patched for about 12 months and she was great with them. I used to buy little stickers e.g. love hearts, stars, smiley faces, etc and we used to decorate the patch before she put it on in the morning.

My poor dd is now booked in for an op to correct her squint as she still squints badly even with her glasses on (the patching is not to correct the squint but to improve the eyesight) - its on 23rd March - scary!!

All I can add is to encourage your DS to wear the patch. I have a lazy eye and refused to wear the patched glasses as a child and was not made to by parents. I'm now practically blind in my lazy eye which is a pain to say the least!
Hope it works out for your son.

we had to patch dd3 for a while last year as she stopped using her right eye completely even with glasses on and failed all checks (she has been wearing glasses since 18months old is now almost 3yrs old). we patched for a couple of hours a day, then she started peeling the patches off. at her last eye check in nov, she passed all the checks, and with her new perscription, she is now patch free. her right eye still turns in without glasses but is using it fine with glasses on.

think we were patching for 6months.

Oh yes please encourage him to wear his patch, although easier said than done and he will not appreacite it until he is much older.

I had a 'squint' op when I was 18 months old . I can't remeber when I started wearing a patch but I remeber being about 7yrs old and wearing one for a couple of hours ever afternoon after school. I honestly cant remeber when I stopped .

I am now 42 and still dont wear glasses , I dont think glasses would make my eye work any better anyhow.

I have adjusted over the years and if a covered my lazy eye up it doesn't really make much differnce to my sight . If I cover my good eye up ..WOW I can see ( or rather not ) a differnce .

I had to have many an eyesight test when I was in my previous career and never encounted a problem.

Hi, my ds (now 4) has been patching for a year, and it's made a huge difference to the sight in his poor eye. At the beginning he couldn't recognise letters smaller than about 4cm on the chart, now he can do the second smallest line.
He started with two hours per day, and is not down to one-and-a-half. What has really helped is that his patch is a material one with buttonholes so it slips onto his glasses, not a sticky one (he tried those for a couple of days ad hated them). He gets some computer time (CBeebies website) to start off with, then a treat (one chocolate) at the end of his two hours. He finds the last half hour quite hard.

I have a lazy eye and my 16 month old has had hers checked out as we suspect a lazy eye for her too and the specialist said its all about brain connections as well as the muscles. Just thought Id add that as I found it quite an interesting thing to know. She also said its imperrative that it gets corrected as a child (up to about 7 or 8 i think) as thats the key time for the brain making connections to do with sight.

dd is 6 and has very poor eyesight, her prescription is +5 in the right, and +6 in the left. her left eye squints too, so we have been doing 2 hours of patching a day for 6 months now. she goes every 8 weeks to get it checked and there is a marked improvement in her sight on the left.

we now have to keep going with the patching until it equals out. the stick on patches were useless though and kept peeling off, so i made dd one out of felt that her glasses slip through.

will see if i can find a pic of her in her homemade patch and put it on my profile

Hi

I had a patch as a child (late sixties) to correct my lazy right eye. When I had a check up at the London Eye Hospital as an adult they told me that wearing the patch had enormously improved my squint. My left eye is near normal. I wear glasses all the time and I'm useless at hitting a tennis ball (difficulty judging distances or maybe just rubbish at tennis) but if my mother hadn't made me wear the patch I'd be much worse. I'm allowed to drive wearing glasses, for example. Good luck.

Thanks for your replies - I will definately keep going with it as is obviously makes a huge difference.

We have now completed the first week of patching and with the exception of the first day he has kept his patch on for the full 6 hours a day.

Last night whilst watching Dancing on Ice he pointed out that Chris Fountain had got his patch on too (it was his union jack make up around his eye)!

Hope I might see some improvement at his next appointment.

Alpech