Day +173 - 2nd Opinion

2nd Opinion on her vision

I LOVED this doctor. He knew we were coming for a second opinion. He took a lot of time explaining things and gave us as much information as he had.

To catch everyone up. Dani is VERY near-sighted. She also hates her glasses and patching. I mean she will keep her glasses on for an hour or so because she knows she will be in trouble if she does not but she still hates them. We thought that if the glasses where really helping her she would get use to them. That has not been the issue. She was diagnosised in July of last year -14 in one eye and -17 in the other. That doctor (Dr. Tychsen) was very abrupt and did not seem like a people person (I know when you get to a specialist that might be the case). He wants to do a lens implant at the same time as the muscle correction for her crossed eye. When I googled that or talked to our insurance I could not find out much information. So I wanted a second opinion to make sure the direction he wanted to go was the right one.

Dr. Goodrich actually said he has referred some patients to Dr. Tychsen. Dr. Tychsen and another doctor (hospital) in Texas are the only ones doing lens implants. So he did not have a lot of information on the lens implant on children himself. He did try to figure out her refraction while we were in the clinic and he came close enough to Dr. Tychsen's that he had no issues with it. He said a few items he would not be able to determine unless he put Dani under like Dr. Tychsen did.

He also told us that this is a step above an experimental procedure. He said maybe 10-100 children nationwide have had this done. He said if we asked the clinic we can get the info of success rate and complications. He was not sure insurance would cover it. But he said it was appropriate for Dr. Tychsen to want to do this.

He mentioned another procedure which would be put a corrective lens on top of her pupil and get her to an almost zero for now. The downfall on that is cataracts getting worse (she already has corneal clouding) and glaucoma. But that would be later on down the line. Also her vision could continue to get worse so she would still need glasses later on down the road.

It just seems like Jason and I have to keep making these HUGE decisions and it will impact her life to a huge degree. I am selfish enough to want things to get easier at some point. It just does not seem to be in the cards right now. We will talk to the main nurse the first friday in June and make a decision then.