Diagnosis: Far SIghted AND Amblyopia

At S's four year old well visit, she had a brief eye exam. She passed one eye with no problems. When asked to do the second eye, she refused because she had "already told the nurse what the pictures were". At the time, I thought it was really funny.

Fast forward almost a year, and eye screenings were done at her preschool. She failed the exam. S had her five year old well visit scheduled a couple weeks later, so I figured we could address it then. At her well visit, she failed the screening with her right eye again, though she could see fine with her left eye.

I scheduled a visit with a pediatric ophthalmologist, and that visit was today. The official diagnosis was that her right eye has has fairly significant farsightedness (she couldn't see any pictures smaller than 20/80), and her right eye seemed fine. Due to the discrepancy in her vision, she has developed Amblyopia, also known as "lazy eye".

I have to admit I'm a bit confused. I always thought that people who were farsighted could see things at a distance, but that is obviously not the case with S. I honestly have never noticed any symptoms. I would feel really guilty, but as I've consulted Dr. Google, I realize that many kids don't have any symptoms.

The doctor has written her a prescription for glasses. The hope is that the glasses will force her eyes to work more equally, and that her right eye will get stronger.

We have a follow up in July, and if the doctor isn't pleased with her progress, we'll look at patching the good eye a couple hours a day.

Before the appointment, I'd prepped S for the appointment, and warned her that she would probably need glasses. From my informal "tests" I could tell something was seriously wrong with her right eye, and I was sure there was *something* wrong with it that would need treatment.

This morning she was pretty nervous about the exam, and was worried that it would hurt. The whole thing wasn't too bad though. We did arrive at the office a bit early, and they were quite late getting to us, so we were at the office almost two hours, and the playroom was "boring", even to Z.

The doctor dilated her eyes for the exam. I asked the tech if the drops were the "fast" drops. She said they were the slower ones because kids are really good at compensating. She warned me that it would last most of the day. I'm a little worried because when I put S to bed at 8:45pm, her eyes were STILL dilated and not responding to light. That's a good 10 hours later!