Problems with vision?

[Lana]

Hi everyone. I just found this website. My little daughter now 4 months old was diagnosed with unicoronal synostosis and will have surgery sometime between 9-11 months of age. One issue we have noticed, is that she has difficulty focusing. She never really seems to look at us directly in the eyes. Did anyone else's child have this issue??
Lana

[snickers9246]

Hey Lana!! Welcome!! Where abouts are you from?? We're Canadians Too!! We're in Northern Ontario, there's another Mom on here too from the Ottawa area. Where will your surgery be? Ours was at Sick Kids with Dr. Kulkharni (sp?) NS and Dr. Phillips as our PS They were awesome!!!

I'm not sure if it' was ever difficult for her focusing, I never noticed. They'lll let you know when they do the eye exams. Our little one was also a right coronal baby and is near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other. We're supposed to be patching now, but try that on a 18 month old!! LOL!!

Glad you found us and hope we can answer any questions you have!!!

[Lana]

Hi back. From Toronto and we will also be with Sick Kids. Thanks for the reply and good luck with the patch!

[snickers9246]

They will send her to one of their Optho clinics and they'll test her eyes, they do that with all the cranio babies. We see Dr. Buncic in the Optho Dept., he's apparently the best when it comes to Neuro vision problems.

[Jennifer]

Lana~ Welcome to the site. Glad you found us. I TOTALLY know what you are talking about. Before Emily's surgery, I never felt she looked at me- it was like she was looking through me. My husband commented about it also. I could never pin point it as I knew she could see, but she just kind of looked past us or through us- not AT us. One week post-op, I started crying because I realized she looked at me, she just totally looked into my eyes...best feeling ever. We saw a optho about a month post op and were told her eyes were fine.......

[Lana]

Thank you both for answering me. We actually do have an appointment soon with Sick Kids to see an opthomologist and we are looking forward to what they have to say. Jennifer - what you said makes me feel so relieved to know your little one looked at you after surgery. The way you described it is exactly what mine does - she appears to be looking at things but seems to look past or through people. Did anyone tell you why they do this?

[steff]

Hi Lana! My daughter had right coronal cranio, and before surgery too I was always wondering when we called her or talked to her, she wasn't looking at us. She seemed to be looking past us too. A few months after surgery and after her therapy for her torticollis (head tilt), she improved greatly. She was more focused and looked us in the eye when we talked to her. I almost forgot about her eye problems before. I even remember asking the doctor before surgery why her eyes were that way, and I remember him saying it was because her orbits weren't aligned, but things will change a couple of weeks after surgery, and he was RIGHT!

[plukids]

Hi Lana and welcome to CK! My daughter had surgery for Left cornoal/metopic synostosis 10 months ago. I did not really notice an eye problem with her so much but I would be happy to answer or give input on any questions I can. Post away!!

[mom2mykidos3]

Welcome, my daughter is also 4 months old now and has been diagnosed with left coronal CS and is due to have surgery sometime in October. We go to see her eye doctor again in a couple of weeks. He has said that she has a hard time focusing and it might require surgery, but we just have to wait and see what comes after her cranio surgery. Good luck with everything and keep us informed.

[laurensmom]

Hi Lana,

My daughter had a hard time focusing as well and soon her eye starting shifting upward when she looked at us. She had been diagnosed with fourth ocular nerve palsy and has had surgery in her one eye and then her other eye went and she had surgery in that eye as well. It is not a serious surgery...it's almost like laser surgery and they lose one drop of blood. If you had a CT Scan then it's a walk in the park. She'll be fine..just go to a good opthomologist. Good luck I'll pray for you.

Denise

[ahope4us]

Hi Lana! I just joined too. I noticed yesterday that Trey's eyes are crossing and wandering when he is nursing. It's good to hear that we aren't alone and that it is most likely fixable.
Do a lot of Cranio babies have torticollis? We thought Trey had a slight problem with it after birth and I took him to my Chiropractor and she fixed him right up. He didn't want to turn his head to the left. No further problems with this thank goodness.
Danielle

[evaloli]

My grandchild has been diagnosed with coronal craniosynostosis and is scheduled for October 16th. She still needs to see an eye and hearing specialist. I guess the reason would be to see if she has totticollis? I don't even know what this is -- have to do research. She use to favor her left side all the time in the earlier months. Now she is 9 1/2 months old and doesn't seem to look to the left all the time; a lot but not all the time. The left side of her head is where the surgery is taking place so maybe there is a connection. What do you think?

[Katie]

My grandchild has been diagnosed with coronal craniosynostosis and is scheduled for October 16th. She still needs to see an eye and hearing specialist. I guess the reason would be to see if she has totticollis? I don't even know what this is -- have to do research. She use to favor her left side all the time in the earlier months. Now she is 9 1/2 months old and doesn't seem to look to the left all the time; a lot but not all the time. The left side of her head is where the surgery is taking place so maybe there is a connection. What do you think?

Torticollis is when the head tilts to one direction or the other. It can have many different causes (if there is a hearing loss in one ear the child will sit with the good ear up, or if there is an eye muscle problem the child will tilt to see things straight), but in most cases, it is muscular and phsyical therapy can treat it. In craniosynostosis, vision or hearing problems can occasionally be a concern (usually in syndrome related cranio). Many doctors have the child seen by an opthalmologist and/or ENT for an evalution just to make sure everything is OK.

[mom2mykidos3]

Hello again. I post a thread about my daughters eye problems if you want to take a look. I don't want to discourage you, but my eye doctor said that the cranio surgery wouldn't help it and that Miriam will need a eye muscle surgery. He explained it really well to us. He said imagine you bicep is in your chest rather than in your arm, your tricep wouldn't work properly. He said because the of CS her eye muscles aren't in the right area so they have to go and move them. It does make sense. I hope that helps. Right now we are having to patch Miriam's eyes.