On 2005-04-12, illecebra wrote:
Has the doctor considered the possibility that your son has "lazy eye"?
~ I can't think of the clinical name, but basically lazy eye means that
the muscles controlling one eye are weak, causing it to drift to one
side when the person is relaxed, or when they are trying to focus on
something moving toward them or away from them.

The word is "strabismus," and the original poster did mention that
there was no history of it in his family.


If that turns out to be the case, it can sometimes be cured, or at least
improved, through simple exercises. I had it as a kid, and it's under
control enough now that it only bothers me when I am *very* tired.

I'm kind of curious how one diagnoses nearsightedness or farsightedness
in a child too young to explain how something looks to them through
different lenses.

The optometrist can look into the eye and see if the image is focussed
on the retina ("objective refraction"). This is not quite as easy or
reliable as asking a communicative patient what they see ("subjective
refraction"), but it can be done.
http://www.opt.indiana.edu/ce/infant/exambr/refract.htm
has pointers to 4 methods that can be used with infants.


------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
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