Larry Birkhead has revealed that his daughter with Anna Nicole Smith, Dannielynn, is battling an eye problem."She has strabismus, which is a turning in of one of her eyes," Larry Birkhead tells Entertainment Tonight, "and it's something that we've been looking out for for a while."
Birkhead added, "I've been taking her to the doctors." He went on to explain that Anna Nicole "had taken Dannielynn to the doctor to see about it when she was just a few months old."
Strabismus is a vision condition in which a person can not align both eyes simultaneously under normal conditions. It is estimated that up to 5% of all children has some type or degree of strabismus.
[Note from Emma - my eight-year-old son had a much milder case of stabismus when he was a toddler. It was basically treated by covering the "strong" eye and forcing the weaker eye to retrain itself. It was corrected in less than a year of retraining and he now has 20/20 vision in both eyes.]
In order to correct the condition, Dannielynn wears an eye patch, "I got her a little pirate doll to show her that people wear patches, and it's okay," says Birkhead, "and daddy wears a patch if he has to to show her it's okay. I've been really aggressive with the patch as much as I can be. At first she was really open to it and it didn't really bother her. Now, she's gotten a little smart because she can pull it off, so it's a little bit harder for me to patch her."
Birkhead is hoping to avoid having his daughter undergo surgery to correct the problem. "I'm going to do everything to make sure that it's corrected," says Birkhead, "but having lost Anna and [her son] Daniel and my dad – my dad just came out of a simple surgery and he died – it's just tough for me to think about surgeries with [Dannielynn]."
The obvious question is whether Anna Nicole's drug dependency during her pregnancy may have caused the problem. Birkhead has asked the question himself and consulted with several doctors. His findings show that "all off the opinions that I had ... every one of them said that it's very, very unlikely, because no one knows 100 percent what causes [strabismus].
"But I point-blank ask every single doctor, 'Could any medications that Anna was on have caused this?' And they said that it's more likely that a genetic reason could have caused it."
Source: Entertainment Tonight
I just heard about Dannielyn's Strabisms and I am very glad that they caught it early. My son was diagnosed with Amblyopia at 2 years old and had to wear an eye patch also. I had alot of trouble patching him and made a DVD called "The Eye Patch Kids" to help him and other kids with patching. I hope that Dannielyn does well with the patching.
ReplyDeleteKelly H.
http://www.bjortandcompany.com
They didn't diagnose my son until he was 4. It was easier to patch him at that age because he was able to understand why he needed to wear it.
ReplyDeleteMy nephew was diagnosed at 2 and his parents had problems with him taking the patch off all the time.
Thankfully, the condition was corrected in both of the kids thanks to early diagnosis.
why are they afraid to say that dannielynn is being treated for AMBLYOPIA?
ReplyDeleteI had/have strabismus and had surgery for it three times - first two when I was a toddler didn't work, and then again at 12. Wore bifocals as a kids, but after it was fixed my vision was perfect. No one would suspect, and I don't need glasses or anything else. Sounds like Larry is doing exactly the right thing.
ReplyDeleteAmblyopia and strabismus are two different things. Strabismus is the crossing of the eys and amblyopia is vision loss. My daugheter has strabismus, but not amblyopia. Maybe Dannielyn only has strabismus.
ReplyDelete