When
I was a kid (the early 60's) it was common practice to only bring
a child to an eye doctor if the teacher reported that the child seemed
to be having difficulty seeing the blackboard. Of course, in those
days it was also common for every pediatrician to do a quick vision
test -- something that seems to have been abandoned in these days
of specialization.
So
it was a teacher's suggestion that led to discovering that I required
glasses when I was in grade three.
Later,
when I became a parent, I too adopted the attitude that if there was
a vision problem, I'd find out about it and correct it. No big deal.
Well
I was wrong. When my first daughter was about six years old, she developed
an eye infection that looked very much like the dreaded "pink
eye" condition that children often get. Since such an infection
is contagious and generally requires treatment with antibiotics, we
quickly made her first appointment with an eye doctor.
Diagnosing
pink eye and prescribing medication was easy. But then the doctor
asked me something I wasn't expecting. He asked if I minded if he
checked my daughter's vision. I thought it was a bit strange seeing
that I was there to treat an infection, and assumed that he was looking
to collect a bit more insurance money. But why object?
He
started the testing using a simple pattern chart, so that my daughter
could simply point in the direction of each symbol (avoiding the possibility
of misnaming a letter.) She breezed through the test of both eyes,
then the right eye only. When the doctor covered the right eye and
asked her to continue, there was a long pause. You can imagine my
total shock when she said that she couldn't see the largest symbol
on the chart! (It makes me shiver just to write this, almost twenty
years after it happened.)
The
doctor tried a few other tests, then let my daughter go play in the
waiting room. He told me that she had what in layman's terms is called
a "lazy eye". In a nutshell, it means that for whatever
reason, her brain was "tuning out" the signal from one eye,
even though physically there was nothing wrong with it.
I'd
heard of a lazy eye, but I always thought this was obvious because
the eye tended to "drift", or not focus along with the strong
eye. The doctor agreed that this was common, but not always the case.
I also protested that she had passed the school vision screening tests
each year. He explained that kids are smart, and if they can't see,
they "cheat" and peek with their stronger eye. The typical
school screeners test so many children in a day that they can't properly
notice such things. I realized that my protests were useless -- the
doctor was right, my daughter couldn't see through one eye! The vision
in her left eye was about 20/80.
So
what to do? Well, the doctor informed me that a program of "patching"
the strong eye, to force use of the weak eye, was usually quite effective
in re-activating the brain's processing of the signals. But he also
told me that there wasn't much time -- by the age of six or seven
the brain would no longer respond to re-training! If not for this
infection and if not for this fine doctor, who saw something that
made him suspect a problem, we might not have caught it in time.
Well,
the story doesn't end there. We started a program of eye glasses and
patching, as suggested and monitored by another eye doctor closer
to our home. My daughter's vision slowly improved, until it was about
20/60. After this, it stopped improving. The doctor told us that this
was as good as we were going to get it, given her age, and that we
should be happy with the result.
Luckily,
we didn't listen. I started asking around, to locate the best children's
eye specialist in town. We weren't going to give up on our child unless
we absolutely had to. We were referred to a specialist at a children's
hospital, and took her to be evaluated.
While
this doctor agreed that at her age it might be hard to make more improvements,
he also agreed that we shouldn't stop trying. He suggested some very
new techniques that he had read about -- including the use of video
games (Atari in those days!) and certain eye exercises. We continued
to work with him for months -- and surprised everyone by bringing
our daughter's vision up to 20/40 or better -- a good example of why
to never give up!
Today,
she is married with a child of her own. She doesn't require glasses,
and easily passes the driving vision tests. We were lucky.
I
appeal to all who read this to encourage anyone with young children
to have their eyes tested professionally. Don't wait until someone
notices a vision problem, or it could be too late!
Hershel
Belkin is the managing editor of the Best
Value Guide, a no-ads directory of shopping sites
that have been carefully evaluated to ensure a pleasant shopping experience
as well as good value. © 2003, Belkinder Marketing. Reprint rights
usually granted, send request to reprint@bestvalueguide.com.
