Vision help

[waverly]

I know I mentioned DS's tracking problems before, and someone had mentioned vision therapy.

I was looking into it, not specific to my insurance, but it looks like a lot of insurances don't cover it.  I was doing the online tests that the vision therapy experts had put out there, and he was only scoring about 3 issues out of 20.

So I discussed it again with OT and she gave me some exercises.  She said there was a convergence issue.  He does converge but then doesn't refocus back out.

I can do the OT exercises because what else can I do?

But is the next step the pediatric opthamologist that specializes in eye muscles?  I know the vision therapy experts would say the vision therapist, but I was wary of paying out of pocket on top of all the other expenses we had.  Plus I would kind of like an MD to weigh in prior to seeking out vision therapy.  I would ask the vision therapist groups, but they seem very pro vision therapy, so I didn't think I would get a unbiased answer.  All the regular optometrist said was practice tracking. 

Do I need to bring regular pedi into the conversation, get a second opinion from an optometrist?  Still wondering on neurology, but nothing has specifically stated neurology- just wondering what the underlying reason for all of these things could be.  If it all just stems from him having issues in the womb?  But that seems so unspecific.  So I just keep addressing issues as we recognize them, but wondering when there will stop being new issues.  Obviously none of you have that answer. 

[akafred]

Vision therapy forums are overwhelmingly pro-VT.

I have considered VT for DD. My issue is it is covered by her insurance BUT there are no providers who do it in network that I can find. Which is infuriating.

I had VT as a kid and I swear by it for my issues, but I had a rather bad amblyopia/strabismus. The opthalmalogist said I needed surgery. VT resolved the issues and no surgery required. Meanwhile my BFF in high school had strabismus surgery for an upturning eye and it did not resolve the issue and he had visible scar tissue. That was a long time ago though; surgery has probably improved a lot.

Nobody can really make this decision for you. Unfortunately there are a lot of pseudotherapies out there that are hard to tell if they will benefit your child or not.

[waverly]

Feb 28, 2018 16:55:06 GMT -5 akafred said:

Vision therapy forums are overwhelmingly pro-VT.

I have considered VT for DD. My issue is it is covered by her insurance BUT there are no providers who do it in network that I can find. Which is infuriating.

I had VT as a kid and I swear by it for my issues, but I had a rather bad amblyopia/strabismus. The opthalmalogist said I needed surgery. VT resolved the issues and no surgery required. Meanwhile my BFF in high school had strabismus surgery for an upturning eye and it did not resolve the issue and he had visible scar tissue. That was a long time ago though; surgery has probably improved a lot.

Nobody can really make this decision for you. Unfortunately there are a lot of pseudotherapies out there that are hard to tell if they will benefit your child or not.

I don't see a need for surgery at this time and would probably do vision therapy before surgery. I would go to MD to determine cause I guess. Maybe try the exercises from the OT for a set period of time and then ...?

[caramia]

It depends on the cause. VT will be helpful if it’s an eye muscle issue. My perspective is skewed because my daughter has cortical visual impairment, so I always think of it first.

If tracking is the only issue, an ophthalmologist could give you more info & a diagnosis. If there are other vision irregularities, I would specifically ask about CVI and/or also see a neurologist. My daughter was diagnosed by neurology & ophthalmology together at around 6 months. At that point she wasn’t tracking or making eye contact at all, so I knew something was off but the optometrist said she had perfect eye sight (her eyes are fine but her brain can’t interpret what she’s seeing).

I’m not trying to scare you, but CVI is the most common vision impairment in kids now. You can read more at littlebearsees.org/what-is-cvi/. Or let me know if you have other questions.

[waverly]

The good problem with my son is that he often presents "mild". It's good because he is not that impaired, but bad because it's easy to overlook and hard to diagnose at times.

The list is not ringing a lot of bells. I have seen him reach for an object and look the other way and I tested him just now in the blink and I wouldn't say he blinked a lot with an object close to his nose. I may have been doing that wrong though.

He also still tends to walk with his head down. He is above his peers in crossing the street though but it may be because I drilled it into his head. When he was little let's say 3-5 he ran into every single person he ever encountered. Like walking down the sidewalk was constantly me calling "look for people" and apologizing the entire time.

[akafred]

Feb 28, 2018 18:50:47 GMT -5 waverly said:

Feb 28, 2018 16:55:06 GMT -5 akafred said:

Vision therapy forums are overwhelmingly pro-VT.

I have considered VT for DD. My issue is it is covered by her insurance BUT there are no providers who do it in network that I can find. Which is infuriating.

I had VT as a kid and I swear by it for my issues, but I had a rather bad amblyopia/strabismus. The opthalmalogist said I needed surgery. VT resolved the issues and no surgery required. Meanwhile my BFF in high school had strabismus surgery for an upturning eye and it did not resolve the issue and he had visible scar tissue. That was a long time ago though; surgery has probably improved a lot.

Nobody can really make this decision for you. Unfortunately there are a lot of pseudotherapies out there that are hard to tell if they will benefit your child or not.

I don't see a need for surgery at this time and would probably do vision therapy before surgery. I would go to MD to determine cause I guess. Maybe try the exercises from the OT for a set period of time and then ...?

Right. I'm not at all suggesting he needs surgery. I'm just saying I did, and VT saved me from it. But without that kind of severe and visual difference, I'm not sure. I know VT won't cure ASD or ADHD etc.

[waverly]

Feb 28, 2018 22:44:36 GMT -5 akafred said:

Feb 28, 2018 18:50:47 GMT -5 waverly said:

I don't see a need for surgery at this time and would probably do vision therapy before surgery. I would go to MD to determine cause I guess. Maybe try the exercises from the OT for a set period of time and then ...?

Right. I'm not at all suggesting he needs surgery. I'm just saying I did, and VT saved me from it. But without that kind of severe and visual difference, I'm not sure. I know VT won't cure ASD or ADHD etc.

I didn't take it that way that you were suggesting surgery. Just writing down my order that I would do care I guess unless the opthamologist had a really good reason. We've done so many surgeries anyway I would love to avoid more if there were other alternatives. For tracking it didn't seem to be suggested.

I'm guessing my order is see Opthamologist see what they say. And maybe if we go the vision therapy route set it up for the fall when hopefully we have finished OT and PT for the most part.

He seems to be doing ok for reading so I am thinking the vision thing is affecting more his hand eye coordination/ sports than academics.

[agedsubaru]

We have done vision therapy for my dd. It is helping. We use a string with knots on it and the wii tennis at home.

We had vt with a developmental optometrist. I was wary and started in office treatment. In the meantime, I made an appt with a neuropthamalogist at kki which too an extended time to get in the door. Once I did see the kki neuropthamalogist, he gave the same diagnosis of convergence insufficiency and recommended we continue her therapy cours.

Insurance happens to cover the developmental optometrist so we will continue once the deductible is paid.

[agedsubaru]

We have been to a local opthamalogist for Exams. Nothing was ever discussed about conference insufficiency. And our neuropsychologist poo poo’d it. If I didn’t have The neuropthamalogist confirm the disagnosis I probably would putt on my priority list but I do think it is impacting dd at school.

[waverly]

We have done two weeks of OT exercises on the eyes, and she says they look great. She gave me more exercises for the rest of the OT time. We have 6 weeks left of OT.

I am trying out a new optometrist for DD, and if I like them then I will schedule with DS. He needs to see them anyway since I think his last eye exam was prior to Kindergarten. I could have gone a second time for him, but I don't remember now at this point. If I did, they did not have anything profound to say that I remember.