Vision Check-Up

Nolan had an appointment with his orthoptist today. An orthoptist is a person who specializes in the treatment of amblyopia, for those who don't frequent pediatric ophthalmology clinics - Nolan has a visit with her every few months to verify that his vision is stable or improving with his glasses.

He had a quick vision check today. The good news: he can now see in three dimensions. Awesome!

The bad news: his eyes are separating again. There is a 2-line difference between his left and right eye (corrected vision differences - even with glasses, his right eye sees worse than his left). He is still using both eyes, which is good, but we obviously want to correct the poor vision in the right eye.

The current plan is to do a dilated eye exam in November to see if his prescription has changed. If that is the cause behind the discrepancy, then new glasses will suffice. If his vision hasn't really changed that much, then he will have to start patching the strong eye to force the weak one to work. The orthoptist did a "quick and dirty" check on his prescription in the weak eye, and he doesn't appear to have a prescription change. There is a fairly decent likelihood that he'll have to patch in the fall, but we'll take it as it comes.

Otherwise, it was a really easy visit. He showed off his knowledge of letters ("does he know the letters HOTV?" "He knows ALL of them, lady!") and aced the stereoscopic (3-D vision) test. We grabbed lollipops on the way out and we ran home to get ready for soccer practice.

The only negative of our eye appointments is that Nolan hates leaving the office. They have a really cool playhouse and the waiting room is decorated with giant Monarch butterflies. The eye doc is our favorite place to go!