Sunday, April 22, 2007

It was almost 6 months ago when Amirul came home with a letter from school referring him to an eye-specialist for further observation. So this 'kancheong-spider' parents thought it was very serious problem. We first brought him to an eye-dr at the polyclinic before being referred to a specialist at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. My son was diagnosed as having Amblyopia. The first thought that came to my mind was, "Alamak, my son cannot jadi pilot!"

So this mummy did some research so that we will be more informed and aware about what the problem is & if it is treatable.

What is Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)?
Amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye, is the eye condition noted by reduced vision and is not due to any eye disease. The brain, for some reason, does not fully acknowledge the images seen by the amblyopic eye. This almost always affects only one eye but may manifest with reduction of vision in both eyes. It is estimated that three percent of children under six have some form of amblyopia.

Causes of Lazy Eye
Anything that interferes with clear vision in either eye during the critical period (birth to 6 years of age) can cause amblyopia. The most common causes of amblyopia are constant strabismus (constant turn of one eye), anisometropia (different vision/prescriptions in each eye), and/or blockage of an eye due to cataract, trauma, lid droop, etc.

Amblyopia is a neurologically active process. In other words, the loss of vision takes place in the brain. If one eye sees clearly and the other sees a blur, the brain can inhibit (block, ignore, suppress) the eye with the blur. The brain can also suppress one eye to avoid double vision. The inhibition process (suppression) can result in a permanent decrease in the vision in the blurry eye.

Treatment of Amblyopia (Lazy Eye)
Treatment involves glasses, drops, vision therapy and/or patching. Recent medical research has proven that amblyopia is successfully treated up to the age of 17.

We also deduced that the biggest cause for Amirul would be his almost-addicted hobby of sitting in front of the computer, either playing games or trying out the softwares that I was trying to teach him. So yes, we were partly to blame, given the nature of our jobs, its only natural, I guess, for Amirul to be drawn to the computer.

But the good news is since detected at a young age, it is almost treatable. But alas he inherited his abah's trait of specs-wearing (hai, rabun anak !..) funnily enough he was happy about the whole idea- "macam ShahRukh Khan dlm cerita Mohabatein" he said - a-ah, iyalah tu...

After 6 mths, the dr said that his condition has improved considerably, the 'lazy eye' is working slowly, but surely. His initial degree of 400 has dropped down to 300 and hopefully in another 6 mths, it would improve further. Of course the father is so eager that he immediately thought of Lasik surgey - jump the gun gitu. Luckily the dr said that its out of the question as Amirul is way too young for such a procedure.

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