Patching 101

"A" working on her dot art.

"A" working on her dot art patched.

Here she is feeding the monkey bananas. Doing manipulatives helps with her eye hand coordination. This is fun for her but hard patched.

She has named her monkey "jericho".

So..patching can be a pain in the bottom! When we first learned that "A" had strabismus and amblyopia there was a learning curve. Granted it has been 3 weeks now. Working in the healthcare field, I tend to want to know what everything is and how it can be fixed.

Fixed being the operative word here. Especially since she is only 4.5 years old. This was an early catch. What caused the strabismus? The nearsightedness. Then her brain eventually decided it had had enough and shut off vision to her left eye resulting in the amblyopia.

How do you fix it? First we need to address the nearsightedness. Check, glasses. Very cute, sparkle disney cinderella frames to boot! Exactly what a princess needs! After about 4 days she had no issues with wearing her glasses and she will tell you that she can see so much better. Granted her vision is only poor in her left eye. And to think, she was using her right eye only to do everything!!

Now to address the strabismus or eye turning we need to patch and do excercises for her left eye. Eventually with alot of hard work on her part, the brain will re-map the vision back to her left eye and the amblyopia will be gone.

After leaving our first vision therapy appointment I was armed with alot of information and stuff to do with "A." Including a black patch that resembles a pirates patch. Hmmm....do you actually think my daughter is going to go for that? And wear it for 2 hours a day? This is a battle that I can not win. I know it in my heart.

So, I show it to her and immediately she throws a fit and refuses to wear it. She states that she is not a pirate and princess "A" does not wear a patch. Well...there you go mom! What to do now? Find another solution. There are patches made of adhesive....ummm...no! Raw eyes are not cool in this house. There are soft patches. Ahhh...yes...soft patches that even slide onto your glasses. Even better. Now we are on the right path.

Explained to "A" that not patching was not an option. Told her that she could pick the patch, but she had to wear it. Went to the eye specialty store and let her pick out 2 patches. One with a butterfly on it and one with a kitty on it. Bingo! A little complaining at first about how long.

But now, she is doing so well with them. I went to Lakeshore Learning Center Store today and bought a few fun new things for her to play with. The monkey was one thing. Some lacing cards which she loves and a new dot paint pen similar to bingo dobbers. All stuff she wants to do, but can only do while patched for her 2 hour goal.

I am so stinkin proud of her! She wears her glasses, she patches and she is so brave. When you are a big girl "A" mommy will tell you all about this experience.

I can't wait for our one month check up to see how her eye is responding. Keep posted for more on this journey.