Vision Problems?

[sammythemummy]

My dd holds her hand close to her eyes and then puts it down, she will also look at the tv closely for a few seconds and then sit back.

I've asked her what's wrong with her eyes and she said "people are walking in my eye" (she has a language delay so it's hard for her to explain herself)

What does it mean?

And is there anywhere I could get it checked out?

could be floaters, floaty bits of eye lining which break off. harmless but could indicate.short sightedness.

Behaviour like that would definitely indicate the need for a sight test. We got a referral to a paediatric optologist for DS2. We asked our paediatrician, but I think you can ask your GP.

Oh dear

What does the test involve?

The hospital sight test is nothing sinister, but can be a bit tricky in places. Instead of reading from a chart, they put dilating drops in the eyes, then use a device to measure the focus of the eyes with different lenses, while looking at pictures.

They would use the same drops if they wanted to look inside to see if there's anything untoward that would be causing floaters (I've had this done, as I had some appear when I was pregnant with DS1). If your DD's anything like DS2, I can't imagine this ever happening without sedation, though!

I leave DS2's appointments to DH :o

Could it be, btw, that the "people walking" are the temporary imprint left on the retina by bright lights?

That's what I was afraid of our, I really can't see how she'd allow anyone to put drops in her eyes.

And the thought of sedation..eek

I've rung the GP and she said they don't do referral to hospital unless it's an eye disease.

I wish my husband would deal with it but any sign of her crying and he will cancel the whole procedure

how old is she sammy? You could try a high street optician, some of them will refer to the local eye unit if they think there's an issue and they can't get decent results but they won't usually see really little ones as the gp is expected to refer.

at the hospital you'd usually you'd see an orthoptist first who would try to get her to match a picture on a card to one they hold up, get her to follow a light and a toy etc if she's able to co operate with that. These are the people who usually do the school vision checks. Eye drops are standard for a first appointment to check the eye health and/or if a child can't complete the vision check/needs glasses prescribing by the doctor. Dd3 has been doing the eye unit for years, they generally work very pretty hard to get her cooperation and know when she's had enough

You're right ninja, specsavers told me that they don't see children younger than 5 and she's 4.

She would love the whole matching cards thing but drops in the eyes.... We've just gotten over taking medicine...

That's odd, specsavers has seen both mine at 3 and 4 years of age. They said if they were old enough to be able to sit and tell them the pictures they could see it was possible to do a test.

Both looked at small pictures of flowers, ships etc. Would she be able to do just?

Maybe try another branch?

Some independent opticians specialise in children (some with a behavioural optometry/dyslexia speciality) so, if you're coming up against brick walls, it might be worth seeking one out, if only for them to say that your DD needs to be seen elsewhere and make that referral. Even if they find that they can't test, they might possibly be able to discuss the things that your DD is reporting.

And thinking on that, you were told by your GP practice that they don't refer unless their is an eye disease, but your DD is reporting visual disturbances, which for all you know (not scaremongering, but pointing out that the GP shouldn't ignore this) might be a detached retina.

Can your DD play I spy? I did something like this with DS1 when I was suspecting that he was short sighted by his behaviour, but he hadn't told me what the problem was. In our case, it was thins like "first to spot a B reg car gets the last biscuit" knowing perfectly well that there had been one parked halfway to school, all day.