Tyler's Follow-up with the Bear Doctor

Yesterday Tyler had a checkup with the Bear Doctor. Who? You know, the Bear Doctor. For some reason, Tyler calls his Opthamologist the Bear Doctor. His real name is Dr. Snow.

Anyway, for those that don't know, Tyler was diagnosed in January with esotropia (crossing of the eyes inward) and strabismus (lazy eye). Initially, we took him in because his preschool teacher had noticed that when he would focus on something (like cutting) one eye would cross. We were initially thinking just a lazy eye. He was given a prescription for glasses to see if that would correct the eye crossing. There are two different types, one is corrected with glasses and the other with surgery. He also had to put a patch over his eye to try to correct the lazy eye. He had to wear it for 3 hours a day.

Two weeks after that initial visit, we went back. Amazingly, the lazy eye was now much better and we decreased the patching to one hour a day. We also found out that the glasses did not help the crossing, so we were scheduled for surgery.

On February 6th, Ty had his surgery. They basically cut the eye muscle and reattach it so that its 'tighter' and the eye can't turn inward anymore. Gross, huh? Before surgery, his eyes were 30% crossed. Post surgery, they were down to 12% crossed and by 2 weeks after recovery, they were down to 8% with the glasses. Without the glasses they were still at 12%. Normal is 8 or less. The lazy eye had resolved so we were told we could stop the eye patching, continue with the glasses and return in 6 months.

So yesterday we followed up again. More good news...his eyes are perfectly straight with the glasses and only 4% with them! No sign of the pesky lazy eye either. So in the normal range. He did get a new prescription for the glasses. Children normally have some farsightedness (is that a word?) which they outgrow at some point. He has started to outgrow it some so his prescription needed to be decreased. As for the glasses, he only has to wear them if he's focusing on things up close, such as art, reading, etc.

We were very glad to get this news, especially in spite of the fact that we know he doesn't wear his glasses enough LOL Have you ever tried to keep track of a 3/4 year old's glasses? Challenging, to say the least!