When your child does not squint, does not have cross eyes, does not complain about eyes being tired, does not show any inability to string beads, put details on drawing, does not complain about not able to see writings on the board or books, how would you know if her eyes have problem?
You don’t. Just like us.
I only realised something was not quite right, when Zara dashed towards a car one day in the park. She said it looked like her Daddy’s car, that was why she got so excited. Unfornately, it wasn’t her Daddy, and the car did not look anything like Daddy’s car, except it’s also a sedan. That day, when we walked back home, I decided to test her eyes by asking her to read out the number plates of cars parked along the road.
I have low astig power, and I could read them all without my glasses. Zaria had no problem chipping in with her answers. Zara said all she could see was lines, no letters nor numbers were visible to her. o.O”
We had an appointment made for her to see an eye specialist in Tun Hussein Onn National Eye Hospital (THONEH) immediately.
5 minutes with the doctor, and she said yup, Zara has very high power and also astigmatism. She has not complained so far because the power on the left eye is lower, so the left eye is doing all the work. And because of that, her right eye has turned a bit lazy.
Next, we had her power checked (they had her eyes dilated with eye drops before checking).
And then had a pair of glasses made for her in THONEH.
Daddy wasn’t with us, and when I told him about her power, what the doctor said; he said I wasn’t asking the right questions. o.O” What is Zara’s problem anyway, why is her power so high? So we thought a second opinion should be seeked, and we made another appointment in International Specialist Eyes Centre (ISEC). This time Daddy took time off to go with me.
At ISEC, she went straight to Optemetrist. Got her power checked the 2nd time (they too had her eyes dilated with eye drops before checking).
Then we got to see the pediatric eye specialist, and here is his diagnosis. Zara has hyperopia. He did this drawing for us.
The top showing a normal eye, where far objects are focussed on the retina (yellow colour), and near objects are focussed at the back of the retina. Our lens through relax accomodation, will make the focus of the near object be on the retina (As we age, our accomodation weakened, and hence we’ll need reading glasses).
Someone with hyperopia, will have far objects focussed behind the retina, and near objects even further away from the retina, so in this case, near or far objects are not clear to this person. Being a child, Zara has higher accomodation (up to 7 to 8 diopter), and hence, she can still focus and see things. Her left eyes which has lower power, is also doing most of the work, compensating the right eye. However, it has taken a toll on the right eye, and she has a bit of lazy eyes.
But anyway, we need to get her prescribed glasses, so that she does not tax her eyes trying to accomodate, and her lazy eyes will not worsen.
I asked the doctor, can Zara’s hyperopia caused by anything that we’d done? Too much TV/iPAD? Fringe too long (I get blamed for this)? Reading light not bright enough (and this)? Doctor reassured us it was nothing we’d done which could have caused this, it’s probably something she was born with. *Relief*
We went back to THONEH to get them to make the glasses according to ISEC’s prescription (which is +100 more on the right eye).
Glasses were collected after a week.
Zara didn’t like it. She said everything looked blur to her. She could see better without the glasses.
You can imagine our frustration! After so much money and time spent, the problem was not resolved!
Daddy again took time off and brought Zara back to THONEH to complain. She got her eyes re-checked by another Optemetrist, this time without dilating the eyes. The power is +100 less than ISEC prescription for both eyes. According to this Optemetrist, it’s common after eye dilation, the power gets higher, some children are ok with that power, some are not. We had THONEH took back the 1st pair of glasses and made a new one using this new prescription.
So another week of wait and then last Saturday, we collected the new pair of glasses for her. She likes it, and said now everything looked magnified to her.
Obviously she chose the frame because of the cute designs (although I think half frames are so not practical for children). (See the snowman and the Christmas tree?)
This week was her first week in school with glasses. She said her friends, especially the boys, laughed at her. I’m blessed to have a daughter who’s so confident, she wasn’t upset by all the taunts. She told me when her boy friend laughed at her, she laughed back and told him, “哈!等下你也有啊! (Ha! Later you get it too!)”
Now if you are an optemetrist, or an eye doctor, or someone who’s familiar with hyperopia, can you tell me if Zara should be wearing her glasses just for reading? Or she should have her glasses on all the time (to see far and near)? Because I think there’s some contradiction we read on the internet. The ISEC pediatrict eye specialist said we should let her wear the glasses all the time though.
She needs to do patching daily (although most days she forgets), so that the vision of her right eye will improve.
