For several months the teachers at Luke's school had expressed some concern about his ability to focus on objects at a particular distance. They described behaviors that indicated he was having difficulty focusing (blinking and one eye turning in). In response to their concerns (none of which we had noticed at home), I took Luke in to see his pediatrician. She did a simple eye tracking test and found everything to be normal, but suggested that we see a specialist given my family history of strabismus.
The most wonderful pediatric opthamologist ever, Dr. Norman Fisher, is no longer with us, so I jumped into high gear contacting everyone that I knew, reading and researching online, to find the next best person to take Luke to. We ended up going to see Dr. William Good in February. He came very highly recommended and regarded as a pediatric strabismus specialist. In fact, I made appointments for both kids, just be safe. He examined both Luke and Mias' eyes and happily reported to me that all was normal and looked great. I felt relieved, but somehow still uneasy. I had had enough appointments with eye doctors in my time to know that his exam was far from comprehensive, but I tried to brush this off knowing that I wasn't the expert and that I am highly sensitive to all of this given my history.
It wasn't long later, perhaps a month, when I started to see some of the same eye behavior in Luke that his teachers had described. It seemed to occur most often when he was attempting to focus on the TV, or even on the camera when I wanted to take a picture of him. I knew then that we needed another opinion. After speaking with Luke's pediatrician, she agreed that our initial eye exam was not comprehensive and that we needed to see another Dr. She recommended Dr. Deborah Alcorn who is head of pediatric opthamology at Stanford.
Dr. Alcorn did a full eye exam (vision test, lots of tracking tests, observation of his eyes, and then dialating them) and diagnosed Luke with accommodative esotropia. This is different than what I had as a child, yet is similar in that it is a form of strabismus. The good news for Luke is that at his vision test at Stanford his eyesight was still stereoscopic, meaning that most of the time his eyes continue to work together. This is important and something we want to be sure to preserve. In most children with accommodative esotropia, their farsightedness begins between the ages of 2 and 3, and tends to get worse until around age 8 when it tends to begin to improve.
So, for now Luke is in glasses full time to correct the farsightedness and preserve his stereoscopic vision. The best guess now would be that Luke will wear glasses until he begins to outgrow his farsightedness (after age 8). In about 75% of children with accommodative esotropia that has been treated with glasses, the child's vision will improve until is it no longer necessary to have glasses and the eye will remain straight. We will revisit the Dr. at the end of May for an update.
So, as you can see, Luke is sporting a pair of very cute, very green glasses. We decided to go with a pair of Miraflex glasses because they are so stylish (ha!) and practical for preschool aged children. They are virtually indestructible, are all one piece (no screws for Mia to swallow), and are made of a material that allows kids to play in them without worry about the glasses causing any harm if they fall down with them on, or are hit in the face with a ball, etc. After we had to break the sad news to Luke that his size/shape of glasses did not come in the powder blue color (thank goodness!), Daddy and Mommy suggested a dark blue or navy pair, which Luke quickly dismissed. He wanted green ... and so green it was. After all, he has to wear them. And so far he has been great about keeping them on with no complaints, and I even think he is liking the new found attention that they bring.
I don't think he could look any cuter ... and the green is growing on me :)!
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