little four eyes

Dr. Salma KC Rai examining a young patient in Nepal. Photo from Seva Canada www.seva.ca

I just got this message from Heather Wardle at Seva Canada.  Seva Canada is a fantastic organization that works to eliminate preventable blindness worldwide.  They work with local partners around the world to help provide eye care to those most in need.

The picture to the right is Dr. Salma KC Rai, a Seva-trained ophthalmologist from Nepal, examining a young patient in Nepal. Dr. Salma, as she is affectionately known, won a Fellowship in Pediatric Ophthalmology from UBC and BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. In May (2010) she will return to Nepal where she’ll be one of 4 pediatric ophthalmologists working at the Seva-supported Lumbini Eye Institute.

Seva is currently working with Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology in eastern Africa.  They have a desperate need for infant eye glasses there.  They have many optical companies who have donated children’s glasses, but none for ages 2 and under.

Here’s what Heather wrote:

Basically, I need hundreds [of eye glasses] in total, but would be happy with any, either new or used frames.

As I mentioned, our partner in Africa is the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology based in Moshi, Tanzania.   The co-founder, Dr. Paul Courtright, is trying to establish pediatric eye care programs throughout eastern Africa and since there are no kids frames available in Africa, I try to send him a steady supply. I have several optical companies (Perfect Optical, OGI and IVKO) that have donated children’s frames, but no infant ones (I’d say age 2 and under).  They can make the lenses there, but baby frames can’t be found in Africa for love or money. Can you help?

Khadija, a little Tanzanian girl with cataracts in both eyes, received sight-restoring surgery. Photo courtesy of KCCO and Seva Canada www.seva.ca

The problem is that there is a lot of childhood cataract in Africa, on top of regular refractive error problems, and these infants desperately need glasses after surgery and regular refraction for years after. Without glasses, as you know, their eyesight will never develop properly, so it is urgent. People can look at our website http://www.seva.ca/default.htm to see who we are and what we do.

The frames will be used in Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar, Zambia and beyond. I have a big box of children’s frames waiting to go to the airport to ship to Tanzania and would love to add as many infant/baby frames as possible to it.

They can mail their infant frames to our office at:

Seva Canada Society
100-2000 West 12th Ave.
Vancouver, B.C. V6J 2G2

If they want more information about what we’re doing with the frames, they should include their contact information so I can stay in touch.

If anyone wants to call me for more information, I’d be deighted to speak with them.

Tel: 604-713-6622
Toll free: 1-877-460-6622
email: fundraising@seva.ca

Huge thanks for spreading the word for us…

I know this community is extremely generous, and I’m hoping at least some of you are in a position to help out.

A young Cambodian girl after cataract surgery. Childhood cataract is much more common in the developing world. After cataract surgery children need follow-up for life and in the early years they must have their eyes checked often and new glasses provided. Photo by karl Grobl, courtesy of Seva Canada www.seva.ca

As a recap, here are a couple of ways you could help:

• If you have infant frames that you no longer need, that are in good repair, please consider mailing them to Seva Canada at the address above.
• If you have any contacts with infant eyeglasses frame suppliers, please pass along this request, and ask if they can help with a donation of infant frames.
  

It can be hard to find optical shops that have a good selection of frames for kids, and that are reasonable, and nearby.  So what type of shop did you go buy your child’s glasses from?

Don’t forget our page of recommendations if you want to recommend your place to others.

Glasses – Check

Occlusion – Check

Surgery – Check

Prism Adaptation – Check

Hmmm… is there something related to little ones in glasses that we haven’t tried yet????   Not that I know of!  We went to the ophthalmologist on Friday due to Elliana’s eyes becoming more over corrected. (major bummer) It appears that she is reacting atypically.  As time progresses her eyes are turning in more rather than becoming straighter as traditionally happens.  She now has a Fresnel prism placed on her glasses.  My first question was, “What is that?”  I understand that it similar to the prisms used in the exams.  I asked how it is different than a lens.  It does not affect the distance at which the light focuses on the back of the eye, rather bounces light in a different way (sorry, still not sure on this.)  Googling Fresnel Prisms on glasses has me just  about as confused.  The article Management of Strabismus and Amblyopia: a Practical Guide byBy John A. Pratt-Johnson, Geraldine Tillson says that “Occasionally, a patient with an acquired esotropia and the full optical correction in place may have a much larger angle esotropia on the prism cover test than appears to be present at a casual glance…the prism estimated as needed to neutralize the deviation is inadequate and more and more prism is required.”  It sounds like this treatment is rare.  We pretty much put a stick on prism over her strong eye because it may act as an occluder.  We go back on Friday for more tests and the article says something about testing for fusion with a synoptophore or the Whorth four-dot test. None of which I know anything about.  Unfortunately, we also have to put atropine drops in both of her eyes for the next 3 days in order to get a good read on her vision this Friday.  Since she is older and more verbal about her eyes – she is NOT a happy camper and has expressed her distaste for the eye drops and has screamed all morning.  2 more mornings of drops.  Wish me luck and let me know if you know anything else about the prisms!

I was checking some of my crafting blogs and ran across this post over at Colored Buttons.  It is completely unrelated to young kids in glasses, but I was drawn to her daughter, Shira’s self portraits when she was a student and how significant a role her glasses played in the drawings.  Trixi gave me permission to share them with you – I just think they are so sweet!  At 3, Elliana is drawing pictures of herself, but never includes her glasses.  When children get glasses at a young age, are they just so much a part of them that they don’t notice them?  Is it the age?  I have been wondering if I should encourage her to add them to her drawings or just ignore the fact that they are not present.  Any thoughts?  What do your children do?

Today is Little Four Eyes’ 2 year birthday!  It’s crazy to look back over those first posts when I had no idea if there was anyone else out there going through the same things, if anyone would read and share their wisdom.  That first month in 2008, we got just under 300 views, now we get nearly twice that number each day.  We have more than 300 posts, but even more exciting, over 2,000 comments!  I hope you’ll forgive my tooting our horn today.

illustration copyright Megan Nishi, 2009

So a big thank you to everyone who has read, written, submitted photos, commented, passed along links…  You all have made this a great community that I have really come to love.  And my apologies for not getting photos uploaded recently, I have a bunch of great ones that I hope to get up soon.

Many of you know my daughter Elliana is 3 1/2 now and we caught her amblyopia a little before she turned one.  She has a high myopia, Strabismus, and 3 months ago had Bilateral Lateral Rectus Surgery on the muscles of both of her eyes.  We welcomed Nicholas into the world in November and I feel like our family was truly blessed, as we were told he was most likely headed for the NICU 3 weeks early.  Instead, he came out 8 1/2 pounds, in ok health, and was able to come home with us after several days.  Being more aware of eyes this time around and knowing our family’s vision history, I have been paying close attention to his eyes.  Our PO says they should have their eyes straight by 3 months and he is now 4 months and his left eye still wanders inward quite often.  We are rooting for him that he can straighten these eyes out.    Our first official PO visit for him is in a couple months, I will keep you updated!

Recently, the question has come up in the Little Four Eyes facebook group about what our kids say about how well they see – particularly once they get their glasses.  Zoe has never really told me that she sees better (or worse) with her glasses, though when we talk about why she wears glasses, she accepts my explanation that they help her to see.

So have your kids said anything, one way or the other about seeing differently with their glasses?  Did they say something right away, or did it take a while?

To Our Patching Families,

Sometimes it is hard to remember why we are patching.  After placing the patch over our child’s stronger eye vision or pealing a sticky patch away from their reddend skin, it is easy to say, “We’ll skip patching today.” The most important thing to remember though, is that if your child’s Opthamologist asks for 4 hours every day, we as parents, MUST make 4 hours every day happen.  

I am reading the book “Children with Visual Imparents, a Parents’ Guide,” and came across some words that must be shared.  This book is a fabulous resource and I am hoping to write a book review when I am finished.  The chapter I just read was on medical issues, treatment, and professionals written by Steven Stiles, O.D. and Robert Knox, M.D.   There is a section on Amblyopia and they write, “It is very important that you realize the number one factor in the success of eye patching is to keep the patch on the eye as prescribed by the doctor (p.29).”  Our chidren’s doctors may tell us what we need to do to give our kids a chance at improving their vision, but it is our responsibility to make sure that we follow through with this task, no matter how difficult.  The best time to treat it is NOW, when our kids are young.  Just think of this,

“Damage to the eye caused by failure to wear the patch will likely be permanent.”

Amomofelly

Annie and her daughter Aubrie sent us this review of the book Randy Kazandy, Where Are Your Glasses? By Rhonda Fischer, Art By Kim Sponaugle -Ann Z

Aubrie and I thoroughly enjoyed this book!  The pages were filled with colorful images & each page had glasses on it.  Some of the glasses were hidden & some were not.  This made reading the book especially fun because Aubrie really enjoyed searching the pages to see how many glasses we could spot!

Randy Kazandy had to get glasses in this story because he saw in double.  At first he really hated his glasses, and he would do anything he could think of to get rid of them.  He threw them in the garbage, put them in sand, and even let the car back over them – anything he could imagine he tried!  Every time he broke his glasses, his Mom would offer him a new pair.

I think this struggle is something we, as parents to small children in glasses, can relate to very well!  By the end of the story, Randy’s father showed Randy his own new glasses which helped him convince Randy Kazandy that glasses aregreat!  Randy Kazandy then loved his glasses and wanted to try out lots of different glasses & colors.

Reviewed by Annie & Aubrie