Faye has Myopia and We Found Out Late

Look at this sweet yet sassy bespectacled daughter of mine! 

She is officially crowned myopic.

Disappointed we could have done it better as parents and got Faye checked earlier instead of waiting for a convenient time like this.

We were at an optical shop getting Daddy and Ewan a pair of glasses each. There was a *One-For-One promotion that we planned to take advantage of it. Since it was only the boys in the house who are bespectacled, the One-For-One was obviously for them. 

* One-For-One promotion at Lenskart: when you join their Gold Membership at S$30 a year or $40 for two years, you are entitled to their Buy One Get One Free Deal! This privilege does not limit you to the number of spectacles you make as long as it is within your membership tenure.

As Ewan was getting his eyes checked [it had been a while since an optometrist saw him], we decided to get them to assess Faye's eyesight too. It was lucky for us that a child optometrist was on site even though we did not make an appointment. Faye has not complained about blurry images nor have we seen her squint whenever she reads storybooks. It was a casual check so when she could not read the letters on the optometry letter board, we were all taken aback. 

The child optometrist spent 20 minutes with Faye in the screening room [that's a long time] trying to get it right. When they finally came out, we were told she has a degree of 200 and 225 on her right and left eye respectively. 

"What! My goodness Faye! What happened?" I exclaimed in shock.

200 degrees is way higher than Ewan when we first found out he had astigmatism in 2017 [Read: Lazy Eye, Astigmatism and the Dangers of Delaying Spectacles When Needed]. Even after five years of wearing spectacles, Ewan hasn't even come close to 200 degrees! He is still in his 100s!

Since COVID-19, Health Promotion Board stopped doing their rounds in schools. 

The initiative to provide free eye checks from HPB is an extremely good call to catch child myopia. Ewan was five when they informed us that his eye check in pre-school required re-assessment. When he was six, they came back for a routine check again for all the children. We became dependable on HPB's yearly visit and made no attempt to check Faye's eyesight even when the board stopped coming around. 

Also, we avoided going out as much as we could because of COVID-19. A visit to the optometrist was also avoided because I did not want to visit high touch point spots. 

What an oversight! 

Learn from our mistake won't you?

We could have picked it up when she was in her low 100s. 

If spectacles is what she needs, we shall be supportive. She isn't any lesser than the Faye we know now that she has to accessorise a little bit more than before. She can still look fashionable and be confident! However, she was clearly unhappy about it. She did not want to look at herself in the mirror and insisted she looked terrible. I had to hype it up with enthusiasm and helped her choose her glasses quickly. 

"Wow Faye Faye! This one's really awesome! Look at the colours! It's unicorn colours! Perfect. Now you are a unicorn." mommy did her best and gave no room for procrastination. We decided on the two pairs of glasses in one minute [yay to One-For-One]. I think she looks cute and hope this will help her maintain her current degree!

Looking back, Home-Based Learning plus Circuit Breaker was the cause of her short-sightedness. She started reading a lot since 2020 and sometimes would sit for three hours straight with her book. I let her because well you know, it gives us three hours of peace from both kids! After all, we do not allow our children to read lying down, no reading in car and no walking and reading. I thought we had been strict and vigilant with eye care but it seems we hadn't. 

We should have made her take breaks every 30 minutes and invested in a reading light. While our lighting in our house brightens up our environment, they are not optimised for long working or studying hours. So this is what we are doing now to maintain their current degree and not have it any worse. 

My personal advice when making spectacles for children is to make at least two. There had been times when Ewan forgets to bring home his pair from the gramps or misplaced it at home in some nooks and crannies. There could also be an incident of a broken frame or scratched lens too and the child cannot wait another two weeks to get a new pair. A spare is always welcomed. 

Please do not brush away yearly eye checks for our children or be afraid to be dropped the bomb with, "Your child needs to wear spectacles." Lenskart provides free eye checks and you can easily make an appointment at an outlet near you. 

As shared by Doctor Joy Chan, medical director in Singapore International Eye Cataract Retina Centre, "Basically if vision is poor in childhood, the connections between eye and brain don't develop properly. If the connections don't develop in childhood, it cannot be corrected in adulthood. The time frame is age 7. Before 7, vision must be good in both eyes for the connections to develop. Otherwise, it cannot be treated anymore because the brain has matured. So good vision in early childhood is important."

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