Optic nerve atrophy

Atrophy - an ominous word that every patient hates most. It is defined as the "decrease in size or wasting away of a body part or tissue".  Jason's condition was never given an official diagnosis other than the fact that his cerebellum has stopped developing during conception for some unknown reasons.  But luckily we were given the assurance that it will not shrink, i.e. it is not a case of atrophy.


When he was around four years old we took him to Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto to have his eyes checked.  The then retiring opthalmalogist told us his optic nerve looks pale.... an indication of mild optic nerve atrophy.  But then he corrected himself after a couple of months in the next check...saying maybe his eyes need some checkup.  Having ruled that out, we still noticed his vision wasn't 100%.  He has mild strabismus and focus issues.  When he looks at you, it's like he is looking through you. Then, when he was around seven, his eyes became more "normal". No surgery, no glasses, strabismus is gone.  I attributed this to the things we've done such as crawling to help with his convergence, vision therapy, ABR machine application on the occiputal area, g-therapy, etc.... 


Having said that, there were still moments when I suspected problems.  I would cover one of his eyes, and he would be fine. But if I switched to cover the other eye, leaving what must be the "bad eye", he would be irritated and seems to get scared.  Then there was the observation that he would use his fingers to "feel" the cheerios on the table in front of him, instead of looking for them. He would also close his thumb and index fingers into a pincer thinking he got the cheerio, when in fact he did not.  We've always known that cerebellum affects vision and the judgment of distance so we thought that can be explained by that.


Now...the term optic nerve atrophy comes back to haunt us again. This time it's coming from the opthamalogist at Queen Mary Hospital. Meanwhile, the optometrist at Duchess of Kent says it's only very mild. In any case, this is a good reminder that atrophy is not a static condition. We need to constantly watch out for it and combat it should it gets worse sooner than you thought.  I am definitely revisiting all the therapies we have done before and there is one thing I haven't done....nutritional therapy for eyes in particular. I already got some ideas. Omega 3, lutein, zeaxanthin, B12 methylcobalamin etc....will be studying more in the coming days.

Yes...every problem should have a solution.  Don't let it come at you.  Fight with your greatest might especially when God is behind you, nothing should stop you.