The Eye Appointment

As I had mentioned HERE we took the kids to Boise Monday for their appointments with the Pediatric Opthamologist. It was very informative to say the least! I knew Logan had poor vision and was going to need glasses and possibly a patch to correct his eyes, and I was concerned Brooklyn may need glasses, but I was mostly concerned about Mady's eyes. As I had mentioned, her eyes do this weird drifting movement occasionally and I wasn't sure what we were going to find out about it. Well, it turns out Mady's eye movements are called nystagmus and it is a result of Ocular Albinism. That's right, I said Albinism.



OK, we've all known for at most, 7 years now, that 3 of my kids have white hair, eye brows and eye lashes. When Logan was born they had a Pediatrician check him to see if he was Albino. The doctor opened his eyes, took one look and said "no." Well, as I am learning, there are different degrees of Albanism. I just thought you either were or you were not and I assumed you had to have pink eyes to be Albino. Well, I was wrong. Apparently you can have cutaneous (skin) Albinism, Ocular (eye) Albinism and of course it can affect their hair. Of course my kids have no pigment in their hair, and apparently they have very little in their eyes too. The Opthamologist said that a normal retina will be a pink color, but in my kids, theirs are grey and you can see almost all the vessels through them. But they do have a little pigment because their eyes are blue.



There is nothing you can do to treat Albinism, but with Ocular Albinism you can only treat the symptoms. The doctor said that Mady's eyes are the worst (have the least amount of pigment, and the nystagmus) so she will continue to follow her. She is also far-sighted and has an astigmatism in both eyes. We are just going to keep an eye on her and hope that this won't have too much of an affect on her vision.



Logan's vision is bad. His left eye is weak but his right eye is much weaker so his brain uses his left eye more since it is stronger and therefor his right eye turns in a little. We are going to go pick out glasses for him today after school and the doctor wants to give him a few months to get used to the glasses then she will patch his left eye for a couple hours a day to strengthen his right eye.



Brooklyn (like the other two) is far-sighted and has an astigmatism in both eyes. She needs glasses but since she is young and seems to do well with near work, we decided to wait a year and let her grow a little before starting the glasses. Of course the doctor said that if she begins to show signs of having trouble with near work or struggles in school that we can start her on glasses sooner.



The doctor also referred us to a Geneticist for a genetic work up. She said it is a very long wait to see them but since the kids won't be in child rearing age for awhile, we have time to wait. She said that we have a 25% chance of having a child with Albinism......and we have 3 of them...in a row! I guess that means that we are extra, extra, extra special!!?!?