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About Eye Patch UK When my daughter was diagnosed with severe deprivational amblyopia in Spring 2007, and we were told she would have to wear an eye patch for a few hours a day for the next ten years, I was a bit shellshocked. I had seen children with patches, and I had heard of patching for a lazy eye, but I had no idea that this would be a treatment for my daughter's unilateral eye condition. The idea of my beautiful daughter's face being cluttered up with glasses and a patch for the whole of her childhood was terrible. People would respond to her in a different way to how they would without all of that paraphernalia. Plus, she wouldn't be able to see very well with her 'bad' eye, and she would have no binocular vision - would she be able to crawl, and walk, normally? Learn to read and write? All of these thoughts and more flashed through my mind. I was totally unprepared. That day we were handed a box of sticky flesh-coloured patches and told to patch for two hours a day. After that, we were on our own. At home it became apparent that this patching was not going to be easy. Of course a child does not want you to cover up their 'good' eye with a horrible sticky patch, plunging them into a world where everything is blurred and they can perhaps only make out light and dark, or outlines, or things very close to them. What do you do if a child refuses to wear a patch? If they just cry? If they cling to you for the entire time they are patched, and bury their head in your bosom and close their eyes and sometimes actually fall asleep? What happens if you have to go out to work, and leave your child with somebody else? You can't burden a childminder or babysitter with a screaming, patched child. So perhaps you miss a day. The following day you're meeting friends in the playground and you want your child to play and have fun (and maybe you want to have a coffee and a chat with your friends too, without a screaming child clinging to you), so you miss another day. It is definitely not easy. What I really wanted was somewhere - either a real place or a virtual place - where I could talk to people who understood about patching. Who could advise me which type of patch might irritate my child's skin the least, or what to do if my child just screamed all day until I took the patch off, or how to combat a child who persistently ripped the patch off themselves, or how sick I am of people (well-meaning ones, but still) constantly stopping me to ask about my daughter's patch. And so I set up the Eye Patch UK email group. I want to offer a resource for all parents and carers who have to deal with patching. I hope to offer printable resources so that relatives, Health Visitors and other helpful types can print off factsheets and information for people who don't have internet access. I would love to start a campaign to get some written information, in the form of a leaflet or even just a photocopied sheet of A4 paper, given out to all parents at the time that patching is prescribed. I am interested to hear any comments or suggestions you may have and welcome you to the Eye Patch UK community. | | |
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