Question
Last week my 2 yr old daughter suddenly started crossing her eyes. She doesn't do it all the time, but it's quite a lot. We took her to a pediatric ophthalmologist and she said she was farsighted - 6+ - and glasses would correct it. My concern is that she's able to pick lint off the carpet, pick pea out of pasta and point tiny things out in books, so how can she be farsighted? Also, we thought she was crossing her eyes when she was looking in the distance, not up close. Plus, wouldn't she have bad hand-eye coordination or something if it was so severe (not sure how severe 6+ is, but the dr said severe about 5 times). We're going back next week to get a better exam (her dilation didn't take well) and are probably going to get a second opinion, but I can't wait that long. Thanks!
Answer
If your daughter is +6.00 and is crossing her eyes, she definitely needs glasses. The glasses are not needed because she can't see, but because when a person is very farsighted like that, it takes way too much effort to focus and the eyes cannot work together. This "work" that makes things clear for her is the same thing that makes the eyes cross. Young farsighted people can see fine at distance and near but it is this "effort" that causes the problem.
The "effort" I am speaking of is called accommodation. It is the act of making eyes focus in closer than the distance they are set at. As the eyes pull in to do this focusing, they also tend to turn inward because people who are not farsighted only use this accommodative function to focus their eyes in to see up close, where the eyes have to be moved closer to each other so they are both looking at the same thing at the same time. When viewing something far away, their eyes are at rest. Your daughter however, has to pull her focusing muscles in very, very far just to see something far away and this makes the eyes cross. The glasses will reset her point of focus at the normal distance so her eyes can be at rest when looking far away and will pull inward (accommodate) just the normal amount to see up close.
What will happen if you don't get her glasses? Her eyes will never learn to work together so she will never have any depth perception, will do poorly in sports and probably also in school. Plus you have the cosmetic factor of the eyes being crossed. Also because she will only use one eye, the one that does not cross, the other one will probably become what we call amblyopic (also unfairly called "lazy eye.") This means the eye will never learn to see clearly even if your give her glasses later. Furthermore, if her eyes do not have the opportunity to learn how to work together now while she is very young, it will be too late once she is six or seven years old.
I know it is not pleasant to think of a very young child wearing glasses, but I hope I have given you enough reason to see why it will be worth the effort. The good news is, unlike most people who need glasses very young, this problem your daughter has is something she may very well grow out of when she gets older that is IF you handle it properly now while she is young.
