Re: do you think it's OK to have eyes dilated for exam?

March 3, 2010

We just check the labels and inserts and use drops without Thimerosal. My

son has been seeing an ophthalmologist since 7 months old (he's 8 now) and

has had his eyes dilated many times. It takes anywhere from 2 hours to 8

for my son's eyes to return to normal. During that time he may blink, rub,

shake his head, squint and do other odd things since he's not seeing

normally. Once his pupils are back to normal he's fine. I try to make a habit

of

getting a very late in the day appointment, 4 pm or later. I bring sunglasses

with us for him to wear in the car. Before he'd wear glasses I'd bring a

baseball had to shield his eyes. We kept the lights off in the house the

rest of the day. The late appointment works out because by the time he gets

home, eats dinner, and has a bath it's time for bed. Then he sleeps off the

rest of the dilation time. I couldn't imagine dilating him at 9am and

making him spend the day like that since his time in pupils returning to normal

varies.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to share for your consideration. Good

luck

Kerrie

In a message dated 3/3/2010 6:40:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

jromkema@... writes:

Hi everyone,

My daughter has strabismus and her eye doctor wants to dilate her eyes at

the next exam I told him I was concerned about thimerasol, he checked the

label and told me there was none in it.

Is there another substance I should ask about that would contain mercury

or something toxic?

Is it dangerous to give these dilation drops? I read about someone's son

who couldn't stop blinking afterwards.

thanks in advance,

March 3, 2010

My kids have had it done with no long-term problems.

Barb

[ ] do you think it's OK to have eyes dilated for exam?

Hi everyone,

My daughter has strabismus and her eye doctor wants to dilate her eyes at the

next exam I told him I was concerned about thimerasol, he checked the label and

told me there was none in it.

Is there another substance I should ask about that would contain mercury or

something toxic?

Is it dangerous to give these dilation drops? I read about someone's son who

couldn't stop blinking afterwards.

thanks in advance,

March 3, 2010

Just another opinion, we chose not to do this at my kids visits this year. And

ironically the eye doctor had no problem determining my son's eyes were fine

without the dilation. He said that mainly the dilation is for looking for things

like macular degeneration which does not occur in children generally, or retinal

detachment.

So it wasn't really necessary.

My daughter had it done once when she was younger and never again unless there

is some compelling reason to do so. Her eyes hurt for the rest of the day and

she got a headache. So we forgo that.

Ironically when I had my eye exam they did not do this either because they have

a newer machine that screens for these conditions by blowing a puff of air at

your eye ball.

So some eye doctors don't routinely dilate the eyes, they use the machine.

If her only concern is strabismus, it's up to you. I wouldn't, but that's my own

opinion.

Jan

> In a message dated 3/3/2010 6:40:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

> jromkema@... writes:

>

> Hi everyone,

> My daughter has strabismus and her eye doctor wants to dilate her eyes at

> the next exam I told him I was concerned about thimerasol, he checked the

> label and told me there was none in it.

>

> Is there another substance I should ask about that would contain mercury

> or something toxic?

>

> Is it dangerous to give these dilation drops? I read about someone's son

> who couldn't stop blinking afterwards.

>

> thanks in advance,

>

March 3, 2010

Regarding Strabismus... my son has it also...I am asking if you are seeing a

pediatric opthamologist or a pedatric optomotrist. They both have different

approaches to this disorder. I was seeing the opthamologist -who did want to

dialate and wanted to ultimately do surgery, until I discovered the optomtrist,

who provides therapy. this was a huge discovery for us. I found this site which

you might find helpful:

http://www.strabismus.org/all_about_strabismus.html

we plan on visiting this type of dr and pursue this type of treatment in a

month or two.

susan

>

> Just another opinion, we chose not to do this at my kids visits this year. And

ironically the eye doctor had no problem determining my son's eyes were fine

without the dilation. He said that mainly the dilation is for looking for things

like macular degeneration which does not occur in children generally, or retinal

detachment.

> So it wasn't really necessary.

>

> My daughter had it done once when she was younger and never again unless there

is some compelling reason to do so. Her eyes hurt for the rest of the day and

she got a headache. So we forgo that.

>

> Ironically when I had my eye exam they did not do this either because they

have a newer machine that screens for these conditions by blowing a puff of air

at your eye ball.

>

> So some eye doctors don't routinely dilate the eyes, they use the machine.

>

> If her only concern is strabismus, it's up to you. I wouldn't, but that's my

own opinion.

> Jan

>

> > In a message dated 3/3/2010 6:40:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

> > jromkema@ writes:

> >

> > Hi everyone,

> > My daughter has strabismus and her eye doctor wants to dilate her eyes at

> > the next exam I told him I was concerned about thimerasol, he checked the

> > label and told me there was none in it.

> >

> > Is there another substance I should ask about that would contain mercury

> > or something toxic?

> >

> > Is it dangerous to give these dilation drops? I read about someone's son

> > who couldn't stop blinking afterwards.

> >

> > thanks in advance,

> >

March 4, 2010

Yes, I think you should get the eyes dialated and examined with a slit lamp and

I think that your eye doctor thought it wasn't really necessary means he is a

complete and total idiot.

Blowing a puff of air with a machine into the eye is testing for eye pressure.

They are testing for glaucoma. You can have a vision threatening eye disease

such as uveitis and your pressure can be normal. It boggles my mind how dumb

things like this can cause a condition that causes blindness to be missed in a

doctors visit, and you still paid probably one hundred dollars for an incomplete

exam. For one hundred dollars you could have had a specialist in Uveitis check

your child's eyes with a slit lamp.

I'll bet if you would call back and talk to the person that puffed that puff of

air in your eye and ask them what Uveitis is, they probably never heard of it.

It's the third leading cause of preventable blindness in the US, and by telling

you that it was ok just to check for eye pressure, they just cut out 2/3 of the

work they needed to do for the visit, but still got paid. What other profession

gets paid full price for doing less than half the job? You paid for a full eye

exam, and I think you were ripped off.

They are risking your child's vision by not getting the eyes dialated and

examined with a slit lamp. Blindness. Gave the kid a headache? Versus Blindness.

Vision robbing conditions in children have no symptoms or warning signs and the

only way to find them is by examining the inside of the eye. That your doctor

doesn't know this is scary to me.

Like our kids don't have enough problems.

Eighty percent of children do not get proper eye exams.

I didn't do eye exams for my kids with dialation because I was concerned about

mercury in eye drops.

They have mercury free eye drops for eye dialation, all you have to do is

ask!!!!!!!

Our child ended up having uveitis, a vison threatening eye disease that would

have been caught in an eye exam only if her eyes were dialated and examined with

a slit lamp.

You might think, oh it happened to her so she's sensitive about it. Fair enough,

but once I got into the uveitis world I began to notice a link between uveitis

and autism.

Many children with uveitis have AUTISTIC siblings.

This could be because LYME DISEASE can induce both AUTISM and UVEITIS. Our

children later tested positive through IGENEX for lyme disease, which is the

cause of both the autism and the uveitis as well as all of our other health

problems. Not to say that mercury isn't heavily involved in the illness also.

American acadamy of pediatric opthomology say children need complete eye

dialation with a slit lamp and a opthomologist (not an optometrist, or the

school nurse, or a health fair) eye exams at six months old, three years old,

five years old and once a year during the school years.

We wouldn't dream of skipping the dentist because it gave our kid a headache or

knocked them out for a day, so it amazes me how we could be so afraid even if

the eye drop did contain thimerosol, the risk/benefit on this is a no brainer to

me in favor of getting the eyes checked. But they have mercury free eye drops so

that is not a concern.

March 4, 2010

> My daughter has strabismus

My daughter had strabismus also. It was eliminated with chelation, anti-virals,

and biotin.

>>and her eye doctor wants to dilate her eyes at the next exam I told him I was

concerned about thimerasol, he checked the label and told me there was none in

it.

YOU check the label.

Dana

March 4, 2010

My son has it too. He had an looking outward - exotopria. It was bad & maybe he

needed the surgery. He had to tilt his head to focus. He had 3 surgeries, only 1

was successful. The brain has to except the surgery & his hypotonia didn't help.

He still had drifting with each eye after. He reacted bad to anesthesia, vomited

a bit. He had an irregular EKG after, but the doc's blamed it on his

hypotonia.Â Other kids were up faster.Â They give versad to help not remember.

It's hard no matter what you do.

I would do it ONLY IF there is no other way. Regular chiropractic care is the

only thing that brought our son's eyes in line. It one of those things you have

to see to believe, just as biomed. Some use vision therapy.

I would only dilate if absolutely necessary. Maybe once & that's it. It caused

stimming, & a migraine for me over time. Last time we went for a check-up our

eye doc. was nice & didn't dilate. I couldn't find

thimerosal as an ingredient, but whatever it is it bothered us. Some dilating