Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Big Sister's eye appt.

I went to a new eye doctor, an optometrist last month with my older daughter because she has been sitting too close to the TV. When we went with Sarah, he did tests on her that Katie had never had. He said that was surprising, since he really didn't do a whole lot. He double checked her for Amblyopia, since her sister has it. He said that Sarah is on the bad side of normal and we will double check in a few years if she grows out of it.
I have been thinking about switching Katie (my daughter with Amblyopia) to him. We talked a little about Katie, whom he had met before, and her treatment. I loved that he was honest with me that I "probably know more about Amblyopia than he does because [I] have an interest in it". I know he isn't a specialist in the field, but he does encourage vision therapy (even though he does not offer it) and takes my insurance. I decided I would wait until Katie's 2 month checkup and see what is going on with her Opthamologist before switching. That was today.
I am SO frustrated and definately switching docs. When I told the new doctor that Katie was supposed to be patching 6 hours a day, he said that there are studies that show that 6-12 is no better than 3-6. This, coupled with the vision therapy we have created ourselves, seems to be doing a lot for her. Two months ago, Katie went from 20/100 in the amblyopic eye to 20/60. Today she varied between 20/60 and 20/40. Well, that sounds like improvment to me, but he said he wanted to hit it hard and told us to patch her all day. Maybe I'm wrong, but I am NOT going to be doing that. She HATES it. We did this already and it made her good eye turn late at night and made her a crabby girl. I do not want to go through that again. I will be seeing the new doctor tomorrow to get things going on a different track. I know that the patching is working. I know that the eye therapy that we are doing at home is working. She is doing better, and I am really happy about that. I was so mad in the office I couldn't talk to him about it, so I think I will call this afternoon and explain my concerns and why I did not set a return appointment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take a look at www.covd.org.

Unknown said...

I think you definitely need to trust your gut and switch doctors.

We started patching for 6 hrs a day and are now at 4. My doctor told me that everything he has read now says the magic number is probably around 3 hours a day but that I should keep that in mind that this is a "minimum" and under "optimal" conditions. There is no way I could patch my daughter all day. It is exhausting - not only does she hate it but it is hard work. I tried to patch one day to see how it was and my open eye got tired within minutes!!!

Let us know how it goes and hang in there!!!!

Related Posts with Thumbnails