Eye Pressure. Something I never used to think about.
But with a husband and a 2 yr old, both of whom have congenital glaucoma, those two words have become something we think and talk and worry about regularly in our house.
Quick tutorial. There are several ways the doctor checks your eye pressure.
Most have probably experienced the awful puff of air in the doctor's office. Hate it. And apparently? it's not even all that accurate.
The second way is by putting numbing drops in the eye and then manually checking it with some sort of device. For adults, you put your chin on this strap and they "get really close to your eye." That's a lie. They touch your eye to get the pressure. They just don't want you freaking out. Kids aren't so great at putting their chin in the strap and keeping their heads still. So they have a device called a tonopen. Numbing drops are still required, and they tap the eye with the pen.
For us, this looks like me holding Kyler in my lap and holding down his arms and trying to distract him while the doctor holds his eye open and touches it with a 'beepy pen.' If the kid is struggling or tense, the eye pressure can be affected and you may get a false pressure.
I'm sure you can imagine how fun this is.
Thankfully, by God's grace, Kyler is actually getting pretty good at this, but still it's hit or miss. If they can't get good pressure in office, right now the standard procedure is to put the kids under anesthesia to check pressure. Several times a year. This isn't cheap, and I just hate the whole process.
BUT there's a tool that is better than all of these. The icare tonometer. Our old amazing doctor in Pennsylvania had it so when we moved to Texas it was a priority to find an ophthalmologist who had this tool. It does not take numbing drops and we've found our kids are just much less freaked out by it because they don't see something coming toward their eye in the same way. We checked pressure while Kyler was drinking a bottle when he was little and then transitioned to juice and a bendy straw when he was older and he'd let the doctor check his pressure with no fight at all.
The problem? Although this tool is relatively cheap in the world of medicine. Not one pediatric ophthalmologist in Texas had it. Not one. The tool that could work for hundreds of patients costs just under $4000. Putting one kid under for a pressure check is over $2000 each time. But our insurance covers the anesthesia and the office would have to foot the bill for the icare tonometer. hmm...
We actually considered buying the tool ourselves since all 3 kids need regular pressure checks because of the family history. We hadn't taken that step yet and I've just been
pressuring encouraging our doctor to check out the new tonometer, as she has a good number of patients with congenital glaucoma. We even had our small group Bible study praying they'd decide to buy the tool. :)
And...at the last appointment, she told me it was
officially in the budget for this fiscal year!!!
I'm so relieved. And thankful.
So is this guy.
