Neil's Eye Doctor Appointment

We noticed something with Neil's eye's some time ago. Every so often we'd catch sight of his eyes not looking properly aligned. Neil's left eye doesn't turn to the left with his right, instead it looks straight ahead. But on the advice of our family doctor we were waiting until Neil turned two before we had it checked out by an eye doctor. I was initially concerned he might have a lazy eye since that was something I had gone through therapy for as a child. After seeing a Pediatric Ophthalmologist, he's tentatively diagnosed Neil with Duane's syndrome. (If you've done an eye exam you can imagine that a two year old's exam is not as precise as yours or mine might be.) Basically Duane's syndrome is where a nerve in his brain didn't develop correctly and therefore the muscle that controls his left eye also didn't develop. We'll continue to have Neil's vision examined every six months to ensure he is not developing any adverse side effects like head tilting to compensate for double vision, but if this is his accurate diagnosis there's really nothing else to be done. Based on other cases we've read about, Neil's case seems pretty mild and he seems to be lucky that his forward looking gaze is in alignment. We were also reassured by some Duane's adults who related that it was really no big deal for them and that mostly it was an nuisance rather than a hinderance.

Here's a photo of Neil where the
camera has caught his eye misaligned.