Posts tagged long sighted

MasterB and His Vision – The patching begins :(

11 months ago

by DawnieBrown in MasterB

So it’s been about 5 weeks since MasterB got his glasses and he suddenly discovered what it’s like to see. The changes in him have been amazing, he’s discovered a love for books, happy land and he has started walking. I can’t believe just how much his development has come on since he started wearing his glasses.

Anyway, last Thursday we went for a consultant appointment at Sunderland Eye Infirmary to see how he is doing. They are impressed with how much he has improved whilst wearing glasses but his lazy left eye is still turning in a bit (though not as much) when wearing glasses. They have decided we need to start patching his strong eye for a couple of hours a day in order to force him to use his weak eye and strengthen the muscles. The earlier we do it, the better chance we have of correcting it.

So this morning was our first day of patching, I hated doing it to him, I know he finds it really hard using his left eye and it upsets him I know it’s only for a couple of hours a day and it is going to have hopefully huge benefits in the long run…but doing something which you know is upsetting your baby is still heartbreaking. He doesn’t understand

I’m sure MasterB will get used to it, I’ve no idea how long we will be patching for, weeks, months, years? I’m hoping not too long! We have a follow up appointment in August (and every 6 weeks after that) so we can monitor his (hopeful) improvement and check to see whether the vision is equalling in both eyes.

Another thing the consultant noticed is that the optic nerve in the left (his weaker) eye is a lot smaller than the one in his right. I don’t understand what this means exactly – will it change in size, does it mean his left eye is always going to have poorer vision than his right? I’m pretty sure they can’t do anything to fix optic nerves but as yet we don’t know how much impact it will have on his vision

It’s all so confusing, the numbers, the charts that they show me. I sort of understand the basics but trying to understand what the consultant is explaining to me when I have a wriggling MasterB on my knee is hard. I’ve always had good eyesight and so all these terms and numbers are just baffling. I’m sure as our journey progresses I will start to understand it more.

Two Weeks In, An Update on MasterB

12 months ago

by DawnieBrown in Family Life, MasterB

Well it’s been two weeks now since I picked MasterB’s glasses up from the opticians and we had that horrific first hour of constant screaming that I thought was going to be the start of a nightmare.

Two whole weeks and it’s been a lovely two weeks. We haven’t even broken a pair of glasses yet! In fact I have to say MasterB seems to love his glasses, he never ever tries to take them off and when I have to take them off him for bedtime etc, he goes mad at me. If I knew it was going to be this easy I’d have been so less worried Its like he has learnt that his world is better when the glasses are on and that’s all there is to it

There have been some really positive changes in MasterB’s behaviour since wearing glasses. Even his carers at nursery have commented on how he has changed. He seems so much happier since getting glasses, it’s not that he was ever unhappy before but looking back he often seemed placid and content to sit on the sidelines. Since having his glasses he is so much more interested in everything that is going on around him and wants to be involved. He will spend ages staring at things and examining them intently.

Even his eating seems to have improved, he makes so much less mess and seems able to pick up food and eat it so much more easily. Before it was just scooping up handfuls of whatever was in front of him but now he examines his plate and then carefully picks up individual pieces. He still hasn’t had the confidence to take more than a couple of steps yet but I don’t think it will be long until he is chasing his sister around everywhere

One thing I was worried about was whether he’d still be my little baby, it sounds strange but I worried I would lose my MasterB behind his glasses but now when I look at photos of him I see MY MasterB looking back at me, looking interested in the world and looking happy. He’s still my little baby just a happier one We have a follow up appointment with a consultant at Sunderland Eye Infirmary in June so it will be interesting to see what they say.

baby glasses lazy eye long sighted spectacles squint toddler

Glasses Day 1, And So It Begins

1 year ago

by DawnieBrown in Family Life, MasterB

So on Tuesday evening we picked up MasterB’s glasses. We put them on him when we got home and that first hour nearly destroyed me. He screamed and screamed I felt so awful for him, it must have felt strange and overwhelming to suddenly have your whole vision completely changed.

Thank goodness that after about an hour he suddenly clicked and the smiles appeared. By bedtime he was smiling, playing and back to his normal self. I noticed an immediate difference in how he played and looked at things, he spent ages studying in detail his toys which up to today must have all been in soft focus

Yesterday, Wednesday was his first full day of wearing his glasses. It started with him crying until I put his glasses on in the morning. He seems to have realised that they help him to see and has stopped trying to take them off. He is definitely happier whilst wearing them

We took him to nursery where his carers all said how cute he looked in his glasses. He was wearing a neoprene sunglasses strap on them to keep them in place as I thought this would help initially until he got used to them and stopped trying to take them off.

When I picked him up from nursery I was expecting them to say he had been tired, his ears were sore or something similar but apparently he had been fantastic all day. Happy, smiling, playing and the only time he complained was when they took them off him to go to sleep. I am so relieved he has adapted so quickly

Bath time was interesting as he was grumpy about not being able to wear his glasses in the bath, he can’t can he? What do other people do, let them wear them in the bath? Bedtime went smoothly and I’d say the only time I noticed anything negative was from midnight onwards when the fun really started!

At midnight MasterB was crying so I got him up, put his glasses on, gave him a bottle and put him back to bed. At 1 MasterB was crying again so I got him up, gave him nurofen as I though he might have a headache from wearing glasses all day. No joy, he just didn’t want to sleep. This continued until 3:45am. He seemed fine, very tired but he just couldn’t switch off. I think he had taken in so much during the day his brain was just on hyper mode and he couldn’t sleep bless him. I’m desperately hoping we don’t have a repeat of that tonight and that he sleeps better.

This morning I left him at nursery without the strap holding his glasses on, he has made no attempt to take them off so I thought the sooner we can ditch the strap the better. His carer has it in her pocket just in case she thinks he needs it.

Oh and I’m thinking by the weekend we will be having our first trip back to the opticians to get the frames straightened. They were very bent and twisted after just one day (whoops) but we straightened them out ourselves but I reckon another couple of days and they will need fixing. I’m really hoping that we aren’t going to destroy a pair a week!

I think I’m getting used to seeing him in glasses, it’s strange as he looks so different but the same if that makes sense. He’s still my cute little baby but now he also looks older and more intelligent. I was worried he would look silly and people would laugh at him but I think he suits them and looks pretty cute in them.

baby glasses long sighted spectacles squint toddler

Master B and His Vision

1 year ago

by DawnieBrown in Family Life, MasterB

A few of you may have already seen my tweets about this, but last week we had MasterB’s eye appointment at Sunderland Eye Infirmary. We got this after I went to the doctors a month or so ago after realising that his wonky left eye wasn’t going to straighten by itself

MasterB has always had a slightly wonky eye and I’d been hoping it would sort itself but finally when he reached one I decided it was time to get it checked out. I know now I should have gone sooner but I’d assumed as the health visitor never picked it up in any of their checks that it was ok. Next time I really will go on my instinct!

Now at the appointment I was expecting them to say, yes it’s a lazy eye and maybe talk about wearing a patch over his stronger eye to make him use his weak eye more and correct it. This is what I’d read on the Internet and spoke about with people on twitter.

What I wasn’t expecting was for them to tell me that they thought his vision was really bad and take me straight around to the optician to test his eyes. There I found out that his eyes are indeed really bad and he is very long sighted, he will need a prescription of 8.5 for each eye He needs glasses ASAP, I’ve ordered them and they should be here any day now.

Basically the reason his weak eye has turned in, is because if he tries to focus he gets double vision and so he has just stopped using it Hopefully with glasses he will start using it again and it will correct itself in time.

To be told when your baby is 15 months old that he has spent his life to date living in a blur is pretty heart breaking, to tell you the truth it really upset me. He probably doesn’t even know what I look like Of course it all makes perfect sense now. He has never shown any interest in books or toys which involve detailed actions, when he eats he doesn’t pick up small items he just scoops up whatever is in front of him. I’d been putting this down to him being a bit slow development wise with him being premature but if he couldn’t see then of course he’d be doing this. It may also explain why he hasn’t started walking yet, would you want to walk if you couldn’t see what’s in front of you?

I’ve had a few days for the news to sink in and get my head around it all now and I’m feeling better about it. After all it’s something that can be corrected immediately with glasses and the long term prognosis doesn’t have to mean a lifetime of glasses and poor eyesight. Let’s face it, when he is 18 who knows what advances there will have been in laser eye surgery. It’s great now but just image in another 17 years!! And as for glasses, well they are pretty fashionable really nowadays so it’s not that bad My main concerns are how on earth we are going to keep them on him and how many pairs we are going to get through in the next few months. I imagine we will be having frequent trips to the opticians to get them fixed

So here starts a brand new era in our family life, photos will now always have MasterB wearing glasses in them and who knows how he will react to being able to see! Life could get very interesting so stay tuned to see how we get on