Eye Doctor

On December 18, 2009 Max was diagnosed with an eye condition, accomodative esotropia - in simple terms a lazy eye that requires him to wear glasses for the next 7-10 years to correct. Max began his eye glass wearing journey on January 1, 2010.

It was originally thought he would NOT have to have surgery in addition to the glasses to correct this problem. We had a follow-up appointment with the eye doctor on February 12. The news wasn't as good as I'd hoped. As of now it is a 50/50 chance Max will have to have eye surgery to further correct his eyes.

In hopes of staving off surgery, the doctor is giving it another 6 weeks along with another eye drops/patching course. Max had an eye drops course for 3 days December 31-Jan 2 where we put the eye drop in at night (Doctor advised) hoping to slip it in without his waking. We always seemed to startle the guy and in fact one night we ended up putting the drops in the wrong eye...what a mess. This time we told the doctor of our disaster the last time and he recommended a new approach and to do it with full knowledge and consent from Max.

We had to put eye drops in his left eye (the good eye), a form of patching without using the patch, for 7 nights. The eye drops force the bad eye to work harder by blurring the good eye. We finished the eye drops course on Sunday night and last night Max asked for his eye drops. Amazing, huh? By the last night, he was racing to the bed to lay down, take his glasses off and wait for the drop. Well, we were bribing the guy with a piece of chocolate so he figured the eye drops were worth the chocolate at bed time. He was pretty bummed he is not getting eye drops/chocolate anymore. He'll get over it, I'm sure.

Here is a photo of him at the eye doctor with the assistant. We have a follow up in 6 weeks to figure out if the guy will be getting his first surgery or not. I had this same/similar surgery when I was younger, but you never want to put your child at risk so of course I am hoping he will not have to go under the knife!