New Glasses for Arielle

3 year old glasses

New glasses for Miss Arielle!  She hasn’t worn them for the past 6 months since her glasses broke, so the first place she wanted to go when she gained her sight back was to the bookstore and I was happy to oblige.

IMG_1308Arielle has been wearing glasses since she was just 16 months old.  We took her to a specialist because we were concerned that she has crossed-eyes.  Turns out that they are perfectly aligned, it’s just that the baby fat around her eyes and the fact that she doesn’t have a bridge on her nose gives the illusion that her eyes are crossed.  After the full exam, they diagnosed her with extreme astigmatism and put her on corrective glasses.

She hasn’t seen the eye doctor for two years and this appointment was a little different because now that she’s older, they were able to do the preliminary testing with pictures.

eye chart for kids

Image from 3.bp.blogspot.com

Those of you who know Arielle know that she speaks very clearly and is a very smart little girl.  When she used both eyes and the images were large, she was off to a great start: “Christmas tree! Teddy bear! Car!”.  Then, as she covered one eye and the images got smaller, she would still answer confidently, but her answers were incorrect: “Butterfly!” (Christmas tree) “Bicycle!” (horse). Then, as the images got even smaller she muttered, “Those are just spots.”

It just broke my heart.  She looked so tiny in the big exam chair and she was following all the doctor’s instructions so perfectly.  I was so proud of her for holding her own in the exam room, but I felt bad for letting her go on so long without her glasses.  I didn’t realize how badly she needed them until that exact moment.  I was so bummed and overwhelmed with guilt, but at the same time knew that we were getting back on track again.

The doctor said that by the time she’s 7 or 8 they should be corrected.  If she doesn’t progress, then he would put her on patching treatments by covering her good eye (her right eye) so that her bad eye could catch up.

So far, I’m happy to report that she likes wearing her new glasses and said she can see better!

If you’d like to learn more about astigmatism here are some useful resources:

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