I sent the email below to all my mum/dad friends to let everyone know what happened with my youngest daughters eyes and to say that if you haven’t had your kids eyes tested please do it soon. It was suggested that I also place this on my blog to let other mums know, so very briefly, here is our story

The optician

My eldest daughter (age 6) had been apparently seeing double for about a year and been doing eye excercises, on a trip for her to the optician with her dad, I mentioned that my youngest (age 4) should have her eyes tested too.

To our amazement the optician said she had 20% total vision. We were astounded and thinking that I must have missed it, being a bad mum chatted to her nursery, my friends, my mum etc all hadn’t seen it either.

The referral

We got an urgent NHS referral and I am still trying to make this NHS booking by the way! and in the meantime saw a private consultant. The private consultant (who examined them thoroughly for at least half an hour each) said that there was nothing wrong with either of them. I chose to believe this as I saw nothing wrong with either and my eldest is a bit of a hypochondriac (he said the double vision was normal, for example when you hold a finger too close to your eyes).
However he suggested that to double check, with no urgency, we should see an opthalmist.

The opthalmist

The opthalmist (still in the private system, as cant get the NHS Appointment yet!) said that my youngest cant see out of her left eye AT ALL. She has compensated extremely well and the reason the consultant didn’t see it was that he covered her right eye to see her left eye vision (she must have peeked through the holes. Whereas the opthalmist put a patch over her right eye and confirmed that she has no depth perception and very restricted site (I was at this appointment and it was very clear to me, for the first time) which she somehow compensates for extraordinarily well. Also eldest DOES have peripheral double vision which is not normal.

Anyway, they are all Ok and both being treated, my youngest may not get vision back in her left eye, but she’s so fine with just the one eye that we haven’t got a problem and the double vison of my eldest daughter vision can be corrected, but again she s fine with it, it isn’t affecting anything.

BUT to all you mums/dads

I was told that they should have seen an optician by the age of three as if they do have problems their eyes are formed by the age of 6 years, so have little time to get treated.

I personally think that the NHS have great doctors and if we had got the NHS appointment as quick as we got the private referral we would have been treated much quicker, as the private consultant didn’t pick up anything wrong- not sure what to make of this as if I thought there was something wrong I would have been sure to get a second opinion, but as the consultant said there was nothing wrong I followed it up slowly, if you see what I mean, thank goodness he said to see someone else just in case!

ANYWAY, just thought I would share this with you in case your kids haven’t had their eyes checked yet.