Eye don’t like this one at all! October 24, 2007
Posted by spacemom in : Kids, Mom Phrases , 1 comment so farSo Soleil has dacryocystitis. Poor girl was born with blocked tear ducts. If you don’t know where these are, put your fingers on the bridge of your nose, near your eyes. Move your fingers towards the corner of your eyes. Do you feel those bumps? Yeah, that’s where your tears drain into your nose (why you get a runny nose when you cry).
Soleil has infections in her eyes since day 1. A photo from 1 month old.
From 5 months old
And from the day after the probing at 13 months
We had her undergo a procedure known as probing. A small probe is inserted in the tear ducts to clear them. We were told the procedure would take 20 minutes. It took 45 and the doctor was surprised by how long it took.
Every winter, when Soleil gets a cold, one or both of her eyes get infected. We have always been told it was conjunctivitis, pink eye. But this time Soleil got an infected eye, the doctor was surprised when I told him that it was conjunctivitis. He said no. And he looked at her chart, felt her eyes and told me that it was dacryocystitis. She has NEVER been infectious. This is just the mucus from the cold backing up into her tear ducts and into her eyes. I had to explain this to the school nurse and the temple school.
What to do about this? Well, I cannot tell you the number of times I was told to "squirt some breast milk into her eyes!" Yeah, um, no thanks. Besides, this appears to be something physical… We have an appointment on Halloween to see the doctor who did the original probe. It is VERY RARE for a child of 5 to still have this (so raspberries to all of those people who told me I was a terrible mom to have the probing in the first place because "she would grow out of it") Here’s a link to some of the solutions. I worry that they will need to cut a new channel. I am really worried that they might have to break her nose to fix this. I
As a mom, I doubt my worry will ever end, but for now… I am worried.
