Worried

[sarahsausage]

I hadn't really thought about this properly until i read the thread about a boy being teased because of his glasses.

My daughter is 3 years old. She was born blind in one eye but we didn't find out until she was 9 months old after the health visitor noticed a squint. Turns out they thought it was a tumour but thankfully it wasn't. The doctors have no idea why this happened and think it is something that happened while i was pregnant. Also the eye is a bit smaller than the other eye, but if you ddn't know you wouldn't be able to tell.

Now the eye is starting to wander and i'm dreading her getting teased about it by all the other kids. Obviously it isn't a problem at the moment, but i'm worried it will be a big problem when she starts school.

We have been told she can have surgery to stop the eye wandering and that it is purely cosmetic. I'm not sure when/if she should have it. Obviously not for at least a few years.

So my question is, would you give your child this operation, and when would you?

Even without knowing all the risks, yes, I would probably go for the operation. It will make a big difference to how she gets on socially in future if it works. But....I would want an in depth conversation with the specialist doing the operation. I would want to know if this was under a general anaesthetic or not and whether if so the risk of that was less if you waited a couple of years or not. I would want to know whether there was any risk of the wandering eye not being corrected through the operation. I would want to know whether there was any risk to her sight through the operation and what sort of level of risk if so. Hope that helps, must be very hard making this sort of decision.

This is a difficult one. I would check out other options (you've probably done that) and talk to eye srgeon. Maybe you should wait and see whether it bothers her or not, ie do the operation if she wants it done. J

Hi SS my niece had the op when she was 4/5. Her wandering eye was quite bad. She is now 17 and absolutely beautiful. I keep telling her she should take up modelling. The op was straightforward with no problems. It is difficult to know what to do but just wanted you to know about our positive outcome.
Good luck with your decision. So many to take in the life of a parent!
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Thanks for your replies. I was hoping someone who knew a child who had the op would post. Thanks flowertop. I too was thinking 5 ish would be the best time.

Had the op myself more than thirty years ago. I am soooooo grateful to my Mum for getting it done. In my early photos I have my hand over one eye, presumably because embarrased about the wandering one, although I have no memory of that. Now it's fine and I'm glad.

@sarahsausage i know this is so old but did it work out ok for ur daughter in the end ?

Hi Sunflower,

My daughter is now 21 in a couple of weeks.

Her eye is smaller than the “normal” one but it’s still not very obvious. Over time the way her actual eye ball looks has changed, it looks like she no longer has a pupil. Her eye is just blue with a little white/blue clouding where the pupil would be.

when she was 6 or 7, she was fitted for a cosmetic lens, like a contact lens but it was thick and hard and covered even the white of her eye. It made both eyes look the same size. She never wore it. She didn’t have surgery for the wander either, it was never really all that noticeable.

a couple of kids asked about her eye growing up, and only once did one upset her over it which she didn’t tell me about until years later. She’s grown into a beautiful young lady!

as she never had sight in her eye, she never had to adapt to losing the vision. It is just normal to her. She can’t watch a 3D movie, but other than that you would never know she had no sight in it.

@sarahsausage thank you sooo much for ur reply I really appreciate it- happy to hear she is thriving and doing well! Is she able to drive and play sports as well? Really appreciate you taking the time to respond