Lachlan’s story. We are a busy noisy family of 6. We have been blessed with 2 sets of twins. Lachlan is our youngest (by 1 minute) and has a twin brother. In january this year our world was turned upside down by a freak accident in out toy room. A plastic piece of toy train track was thrown and hit Lachlan in the eye. He had emergency surgery within 4 hours of the accident. The surgeons could not say what his vision would be. He had a 4 night stay in hospital and was on frequent check ups and lots of eye drops. He was recovering well and we started patching.

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He wore a shield over his eye until at a checkup 3 weeks after the surgery the dr said he didn’t need to. A week later he got a bump to the eye while playing and all his stitches were dislodged. He needed emergency surgery AGAIN!

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This time his eye was very inflamed and getting drops in was impossible. The drs were struggling to examine him and so a week after the surgery they did a general anaesthetic to examine him. All was going ok but we needed to continue the hourly anti inflammatory drops. Countless check ups followed and shortly they found his pressure was a bit high so eye drops were added to his regime for that.

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He then developed a type of tinea round his eye due to the shield not letting enough air in. My husband made another shield for him with holes to let air in.

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The stitches were taken out in April. The surgeons were pleased with how he was going and we insisted he wear sunglasses or clear glasses ( baby banz sunglasses with clear lenses) at all times and taped the shield on at night. His pressure was back to normal and all seemed to be going well.

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The drs decided to do a general anaesthetic in june to test his vision as he was so hard to examine. During this they discovered that he had no lens in his eye. This shocked everyone and they did a 2nd general anaesthetic a week later to confirm it. We were devastated. We were referred to a specialist in contact lenses. We had no idea how we would get a lens in. The drs at the hospital were not very hopeful either.

We went to the appointment in July with not much hope. The optometrist we saw was lovely! He was very reassuring and said he had seen a worse case than ours and he had succeeded with a lens. A special lens was ordered from America for him which can stay in for a month and is a hibrid lens (halfway between a soft and a hard contact lens).

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8 thoughts on “Lachlan – Eye Injury, Aphakic, Contacts, Patching”

  1. What a trooper! That had to be a rough time for your whole family but I am so glad to see the pictures of him smiling and playing while patching, way to stay positive!

  2. Thankyou for posting our story. I just wanted to add that Lachlan is still going along well. He is tolerating the contact lens well and we are getting better at taking it in and out once a month to clean. He had a glaucoma scare recently because the optometrist found his eye had grown but his pressures were checked and all was fine. He has just gotten his first pair of prescription glasses which he loves. They have a bifocal lens in them to assist the contact lens.

    1. reaserj@gmail.com

      Thank you so much for your update and for sharing your story. I am so glad you are doing so well with the contact!

  3. michelle madding

    Thank you so much for sharing this story. In October 2013 my 3year old daughter was accidently poked in the eye with a pair of scissors. She had to have surgery and about 18 stiches in eye. After the surgery we also found out she doesn’t have a lens either. We still don’t know how her vision is going to come out, but she will be getting fitted for her contact lens real soon. Then we will also be doing the patching thing. I have been so sad and little depressed over this and reading your story has really helped me out a lot. Im glad your little man is doing so great. Again thanks for sharing!!!

  4. Wow Michelle you are the first person I have actually “met” who has had a similar thing happen! We have a checkup on the 22/1 at the hospital. Lachlan wears silsofts lenses because that is the best option for him because of his scarring. He has dealt with the contact lens so amazingly well. We really had no idea how he would go with it and never believed that he would wear it or let us take it out or put it in but he does! I am so sorry your little girl is going through the same thing as our son.

  5. have you found a sunglasses style frame for aphakic clear lens…. Im just trying to get a bit more better looking frames for my son. He outgrown his miraflex and he looks like one of those minion character. That’s the response I got from my cousins. He wears contact lens in now, I put em in when he sleeps..like really deep deep sleeps..On the day of putting contacts in, my husband has to tire him out, go to park, run and bike a lot…. So now Im looking at alternative just in case I fail that night or when we go out to beach he has his glasses on. With contacts and sands, they just dont mix… I’ve also asked his eye dr about glasses and he said it’s better with contacts, it better for him self esteem he says… So at least I;ll get him a better looking frame and play around with my son’s cousins feedback before using it at school…

    1. reaserj@gmail.com

      We really like miraflex, along with kids bright eye frames and Jonas Paul eyewear frames. Good luck! We do a contact but also have glasses that my son wears quite often. Its great on days that he is sick or the contact just doesnt go in. They are a big blessing for beach trips too! I always suggest getting a back up pair of glasses.

  6. Hello from Georgia! I have a 10-year-old boy with a freak accident story involving a plastic nametag on an elastic necklace. It tore his iris and partially dislodged his lens. He ended up developing a cataract from the injury and is now aphakic in one eye, along with some scarring in his cornea. He now has to wear “plano” glasses to protect his eyes (which he hates), and we are trying to get funds together so we can get a scleral lens as our insurance doesn’t want to cover it.

    God bless you on your journey!

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