Summer Patch
Posted by: Lizzie
When Aiden was three, his left eye started turning in, so we took him to the best pediatric ophthalmologist in town. We started treating his lazy eye first with glasses since he is also severely farsighted. Four years later, his eye is still very weak, so for the summer, he has to wear a patch over the good eye. What we hope will happen is that in a month, after patching for 4-6 hours each day, his eye will be a little stronger and we won’t have to start eye drop therapy or worse, surgery.
I’m thankful that the eye patches the doctor had are fun and colorful. Being the savvy researcher I am, I found a couple different websites that offer patches for kids like Aiden. The first was MYI Patches. These are the ones Aiden’s doctor has, though they only had the stars yesterday. MYI Patches also have some that can be colored with markers to make them more personal. From what I can tell, though, they don’t have much available online for us to order.
I really like the Krafty Patches site. They sell eye patch kits for girls and boys that come with multicolored patches and fun things to decorate them with (GOOGLEY EYES!!). If you get a deluxe kit, all the stuff for their patches comes in a neat carrying case. What we’re planning to do, though, is order a box of 50 different colored patches then take Aiden to Hobby Lobby and let him pick out some stickers for himself. I love the thought of Aiden with a dozen googley eyes all over his patches.
No matter how he chooses to express himself, though, I want his summer to be fun. We are only on day two of patching and to be honest, I think he actually likes wearing it. We’re able to break up his treatment into increments, like a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening, which helps because I can tell his eye does get tired after wearing a patch for more than an hour. Wish us luck! It’s going to be a long, hot summer.
Tags: aiden, amblyopia, lazy eye, patching
June 8th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
He is precious. I hope the patches help. I love your kids!
June 8th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Aaarrrrgh. He be looking like a happy little pirate in training.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
My daughter has an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist next Friday. We’ve been seeing them for months and they told me she would grow out of the weak eye. It’s getting worse, so, we might be patching her eye this summer too.
June 20th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Hey its MT (hellokittiemama) I have been dreadfully behind and very busy and just now having a quiet moment to sit and comment. Good luck to your son and thanks for sharing this link with me. I just tweeted it on my Amblyopia ID and would love for your to write something up for the amblyopia site to share your story!!!!
Let me know!!!