Lazy, lazy, lazy Eye! - Spot the Symptoms on Your Kid Early

Can't read...

Or just too lazy to read?

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I struggled with my eldest, now 8, when he was just in kindergarten and starting to learn how to read. He made excuses and did not want to try harder.

Back then, you would see our room full of sight words printed on white paper and pasted on our walls. We try to read every moment we get. I love reading and I know the benefits and the joys that come with it. So I naturally, I would want our children to be wide readers too.

However, I noticed that when we were doing his homeworks and I asked him to read from the book, he would squint his eyes and would bring his face closer to the book. He was five then.

It was a pedia visit for my daughter who had been sick for a couple of days already. But then I thought, I needed to ask the doctor what he thinks about my eldest's eye condition.

"Doctor, he does not want to read. He says he can't see. I think he is just making excuses." I told the doctor.

The doctor asked him to stand at up and identify the objects from the eye chart, alternately covering the eyes. The images were the same, just of different sizes.

We noticed that while he was able to name the objects when bigger, we was not able to do the same when shown a smaller picture.

He is not lying.

So he suggested that we see a pediatric ophthalmologist.

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Lo and behold! The check up was completed and the doctor deduced he had lazy eye, far sightedness, and astigmatism!

Here's his "conservative" prescription:

Sphere	Cylinder	Axis
R +3.00	-3.50	178
L +2.25	-2.50	5

I say conservative because this is the initial prescription, and so as not to cause "abrupt" changes to my son's vision. The doctor said that he will gradually change the prescriptions on the succeeding check ups.

Lazy Eye or Amblyopia

Lazy eye is a condition wherein the brain ignores the blurry images that come from the weak eye. If it goes on for a longer while and gets untreated, then the vision on the blurry eye will get worse.

I found an article from WebMD on this topic which you may want to read here.

The Eye Patch. Treatment

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My son, apart from the glasses, was also asked to wear an eye patch over the better eye for a few hours during the day - particularly on instances when the eyes need to work like when reading or using the ipad even. This way, the lazy eye will get trained to "work" again.

He used the patch for 3 months until our next check up. Every time, the prescription changes and we had to change the lenses! Oh, very expensive... considering our health insurance did not cover optical treatments.

Currently, my son's glasses have the following power (we actually need to pay his eye doctor a visit soon):

Sphere	Cylinder	Axis
R +3.25	-3.70	175
L +2.25	-3.00	180

They say children's eyesight need to be checked at 6 months, 3 years and then every 2 years while at school.

I personally believe this needs to be followed by parents especially if we see negative changes on children's studies and on their health in general. Had I not seen the signs early on and just kept on doubting my son, he may not have turned out to be an enthusiastic reader he is today.

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