ophthalmologist for 15 month old?

[Canuck]

My daycare is recommending I take my son to an ophthalmologist to get his eye looked at (I think it's a lazy eye). I've got an appointment with a GP next week for a referral.

Has anyone else had a child with this? I'm hearing stories of wearing a patch over his eye and so on. Just not sure what to expect. Would love to not go into this blind if possible!!

As a point of interest how much do they cost as well? I have private health insurance and even if I didn't cost isn't going to deter me, just like to be prepared!

Thanks!

[Loopy Linda]

hi,

my advice is when you get referral you have to call opthamologist to make appointment, ask them then how much. first appointments are usually more expensive than regualr consultations. also i didn't think private health insurance helps with specialist fees, i could be wrong i never really looked into it properly but it is what i was told.

as for what to expect there, i wouldn't know sorry, we haven't seen opthamologist. sorry i couldn't help more

[rinksmum]

Hi :wave: My DS2 has been visiting a lovely paediatric opthamologist since he was about 3 months old, although we have almost dropped back to annual visits now :smiliedance:. He was born with congenital ptosis, so not quite the same issue as your DS, but 'lazy eye' was something they were initially concerned about with him too. I'm not sure if they are all the same, but when we go to our opthamologist, we usually have a quick 5 or 10 minute session with the orthoptist first, who does a few tests on DS (nothing scary, don't worry!), then his/her report gets passed to the opthamologist. He then does a few more quick tests - just seeing how well DS's eyes follow objects, etc and then we have a chat about how he went, whether he needs further treatment, etc. My DS did briefly have to wear a patch over his 'good' eye, but it was only for an hour or two a day, not full-time - just to get his 'bad' eye to work a bit harder (that was my basic understanding anyway!). My DS ended up having surgery but that was totally unrelated to 'lazy eye' and since then we've only had check up visits with our opthamologist.

Fees - I think the first visit was the most expensive (but I can't remember how much, sorry), and now our checkups are usually about $95. I don't think I usually claim anything from private medical insurance for those appts, but we get something back from Medicare I think? The only time the private insurance came in was when DS had the op...I think :o - sorry, it was ages ago now, I can't remember exactly!

Sorry I can't give you any more info on the lazy eye side of things, hopefully someone else can help you there? Good luck with the appointment :)

[2s'nuff]

We've recently been to an opthamologist with DD2.
Your private health insurance won't help with the visits. Medicare covers a percentage of it, but it will still cost you something.

Hope the results come in good for you little one.

Lisa

[tobmac]

my ds has a turned eye and we are seeing an opthamologist publicly through the mater shildrens hospital in brissie. See if you can get into your local kids hospital as my ds wore patches for a year for 4 hrs a day 6 days a week and after the year he has had an operation on it. We thought everything has gone fine but now its starting to wonder when he is tired but we were told it has a 60% success rate. If your child has to have an op then public may be the way to go.

Pm me if you want to know anymore info

[Canuck]

Hey there!

Thanks for all your input. We're off to the GP this week and then they can direct us from there. Hopefully all is good. My poor little man had a rough enough time at birth so I'm hoping for a bit of a break for him!

[tobmac]

how did you go at the dr about his eye???

[Canuck]

Hey there!

Thanks for asking!

The GP has referred us to an paedatric ophthalmologist. She didn't make a judgement on whether or not there was an issue. As my son does have prominent epicanthic folds around his eyes it can make it a bit hard to determine if he really has a lazy eye/squint. I'm hoping nothing is wrong. The appointment is in a couple of weeks so my fingers are crossed!!