Strabismus Surgery

We went to the eye doctor last Friday to do a follow up. He dilated her eyes last visit and noticed they turned in a lot so he wanted to see us back and look at her eyes without being dilated to see if they still turned in as much. He noticed them both turning in quite a bit. Normally when you only have one eye that turns in, you can patch the good eye so the brain is forced to use the bad eye. If you do not use both eyes equally, the brain will discontinue function of the bad eye. Since both eyes turn in, we are unable to do patching. He wants to do surgery to move the muscle back on the eye so that she can no longer cross her eyes even if she wanted to.

 

He said that most kids who are developmentally delayed have this problem. With Oaklynn it is due to her Rett syndrome. Because she can not tell her body what to do, she can not tell her eyes to not cross. She doesn't have the best eye site but that isn't something that glasses can fix, it's because she crosses them so often without wanting to and can't see straight.

The surgery is called "Strabismus Surgery" (http://www.eyecareforchildren.com/strabismus.html). We have it scheduled for August 2nd. We will see the doctor 2 weeks before the surgery and again 2 weeks after. There is a 20% chance it will not work for her on the first try so he may need to go back in months or even years after and try again.

A little worried as this is her first surgery. She has had anesthesia before to get an MRI of her brain so at least I know she shouldn't have a reaction to that. Just praying it all goes well with her eyes and nothing goes wrong.