Today, we went to see another ophthalmologist, Dr. Mazow of Houston Eye Center. In mid October under the advice of the optometrist we were seeing we stopped patching Andrew for his amblyopia. Once we concluded all of the testing with the optometrist and had our parent consult with the her we felt we needed to go back to an ophthalmologist as surgery is imminent (the one common thread through both dr.'s) and we were uneasy with the direction the optometrist was going. It would seem too much emphasis was being placed on his previous circumstances as empirical evidence was likely not reliable as a result of his English skills at the time of testing. So, we began patching again while we waited to get in to see Dr. Mazow as we were quite certain we would be going back to this. The more we read it seemed that in order to correct the amblyopia patching was the only way. I think this was our number one problem with the optometrist (even though we all wanted it to be true that there was another way other than patching) in that she said patching would not help him. It could be that she was willing to accept his acuity where it was and seek to improve other areas such as peripheral vision, but we were not ready to give up on him improving his acuity just yet.
Our visit with Dr. Mazow was as predicted and he concurred with our first ophthalmologist in that patching is what is needed and extensive patching in Andrew's case. So, we are back to patching all waking hours now for a month then we will go back to Dr. Mazow. He wants to keep a close check on him for signs of improvement. In Dr. Mazow's office he also had an orthoptist evaluate Andrew. She determined that he also has nystagmus in both eyes...it is very slight though. We both felt like we got a very thorough evaluation with Dr. Mazow and he is very experienced with strabismus and amblyopia. The trip to see him was not so fun as we were stuck in traffic for almost 2hrs to get to the appointment...you got to love Houston!
Please pray for Andrew...patching is hard. He is such a little trooper though. He is very compliant and knows that it is to help him see better, but it is still very hard. He tested at 20/100 at Dr. Mazow's office. When we began in July his vision was 20/50 then, 20/70 in October at the optometrist and now 20/100 so, it has doubled in 4 months. We only stopped patching for about 6 weeks. Even when we were patching it was getting worse...not sure why. We just continue to pray for wisdom and for healing for Andrew's eyes. Thank you for lifting him up to the Lord with us.
Our visit with Dr. Mazow was as predicted and he concurred with our first ophthalmologist in that patching is what is needed and extensive patching in Andrew's case. So, we are back to patching all waking hours now for a month then we will go back to Dr. Mazow. He wants to keep a close check on him for signs of improvement. In Dr. Mazow's office he also had an orthoptist evaluate Andrew. She determined that he also has nystagmus in both eyes...it is very slight though. We both felt like we got a very thorough evaluation with Dr. Mazow and he is very experienced with strabismus and amblyopia. The trip to see him was not so fun as we were stuck in traffic for almost 2hrs to get to the appointment...you got to love Houston!
Please pray for Andrew...patching is hard. He is such a little trooper though. He is very compliant and knows that it is to help him see better, but it is still very hard. He tested at 20/100 at Dr. Mazow's office. When we began in July his vision was 20/50 then, 20/70 in October at the optometrist and now 20/100 so, it has doubled in 4 months. We only stopped patching for about 6 weeks. Even when we were patching it was getting worse...not sure why. We just continue to pray for wisdom and for healing for Andrew's eyes. Thank you for lifting him up to the Lord with us.
