Eye update

I was going to put some fun pics in this post, but my computer is being wacky and won't read the photos off my phone or camera.  So it is pic-free, but still exciting!

Julia had her quarterly eye appointment with Dr. Hoekel on Tuesday.  I get so nervous leading up to these appointments.  I'm always afraid we are going to be dealing with another surgery or another setback.  After the last appointment went so well, I was sure I would be getting some bad news this time. 

Julia was awesome.  She sat in my lap and let Dr. Hoekel look closely at her eyes with the microscope and with the prisms.  Her right eye does float up sometimes, but it is only occasionally.

She got the dilating drops and we waited in the waiting room.  We finally went back and it was time to check her prescription.  She was still great and let the doc look at her eyes with the light and the lenses.  Her right eye has dropped another diopter, bringing it to +7.00 with a +2.75 bifocal.  Her left eye stayed at +5.25.  Dr. Hoekel is stumped.  He is not sure why her eye continues to grow.  I am shocked because when we started this journey, I figured she would be in a super high-power contact for years.  Now she is down into glasses and it is looking like an IOL won't even be needed!  He said a "normal" farsighted eye in a child changes .1 diopter a year.  So an entire diopter change would take a decade.  Julia's eye has changed almost 10 diopters in less than a year.  Crazy!  This means her little eye is growing and growing.  Dr. Hoekel assured us that while it is unusual, it is not a bad thing.

She is using her right eye some, but definitely not equally with the left.  We couldn't get a real acuity test because she hasn't quite grasped the concept of the picture charts (I tried the flashcards, she didn't get it).  He estimated the right eye is probably somewhere around 20/200.

We also talked about vision therapy.  He wasn't against it and actually said it can be really helpful but he is only familiar with exercises that can be done with a verbal child.  The author of "Fixing my gaze," Susan Barry, has actually met with Julia's surgeon a half dozen times.  Dr. Tychson, the surgeon, believes that Susan actually had nystagmus (trembling eyes) and was able to achieve stereovision because she was able to calm her nystagmus with vision therapy.  Dr. Tychson has recently published several articles on nystagmus and actually has a full time monkey lab where he does research.  (the monkey info was a little freaky, but I am glad Julia has such a smart doc!).  Dr. Hoekel said that Julia's nystagmus should get better over time, but will probably never completely go away.

So Julia is getting a new lens for the right side of her glasses.  Since it is a doctor change, and is within 90 days of purchase, it is free!  Hurray!

We also discussed patching and how difficult it is.  Dr. Hoekel said that if it gets to the point where she will not cooperate, he can have a plano lens put in the left side of her glasses and we can use dilating drops in her left eye.  I don't want to do this because it essentially leaves her with fuzzy, fuzzy vision in the left eye 24/7.  Research shows that it works as well as patching, but requires drops daily instead of just 2-3 hours of patching.  So we are going to persist with the patch.

So that was a long update, but overall, a fantastic appointment.  I may look into some vision therapy after our next appointment, especially if we can get a more accurate acuity reading.