This past Tuesday, we had a visit with the pediatric ophthalmologist regarding Ella's drifting eye. It's been going on for awhile now, and after speaking with her regular doctor about it a couple of times, and seeing no improvement, he referred us for a consultation.
I tried to prep her in advance and let her know that the doctor just wanted to look at her eyes and wasn't going to hurt her, but of course, that was all in vain. As I expected, she freaked out. I have no idea how he managed to examine her, with all the screaming and crying -- I had to physically restrain the child (I felt AWFUL) -- but he did, and diagnosed her with moderate exotropia, which means that her eyes -- with her, mainly the right one -- turn outward. Aside from that, though, he said her eyes looked good and healthy, which was great to hear.
So we're trying patch therapy. She has to wear a sticky eye patch for a couple of hours a day on her good eye (and yes, we do call her "Patchy" and talk to her in pirate-speak -- I'm sure that will be brought up in therapy) to see if that will help strengthen the weaker one. It wouldn't be a cure, but it can help to correct it. We'll do this for about 3 months, and then she'll have another exam to see if there's been any improvement.
She actually doesn't seem to mind the patches too much, which I'm really impressed with. She fussed at me a bit the first day I put one on her, but since then, she's been good about it. That definitely makes it easier.
Keep your fingers crossed that the patching is effective. We really hope that it works and we can avoid anything more invasive (read: surgery).
2 comments:
I used to wear a patch. I think I was 2 or 3. I ended up having the surgery, though. Nothing too traumatic, just itchy. I had heard they can do laser surgery now, is that true? Tell Ella I'll bedazzle a patch for her, she would rock it.
Yes it is true they can laser surgery now. But i am not suggest for doing this. In it there are many risk.
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