We Love Children!
Whether it's Retinoblastoma or Congenital Microphthalmia / Aophthalmia our experience and insight to proper care and excellent fitting for an infant or toddler runs deep. We developed an approach that allows a minimal number of insertions and removals during the process. This reduces the stress on the child and family.
We are sensitive to the needs of each family and will do our best to fully explain what will take place during your visit at our office. It is important for the Ocularist and parents to limit their expectations of what will be accomplished during the first visit. It is common to expect three to four visits to complete a Prosthesis. One day service is available to those traveling a far distance to our office.
Follow up visits for infants and toddlers receiving a prosthetic eye are scheduled approximately every three months, however this will vary with each case.
Enlargement or replacement of the first artificial eye for an infant may be required in a year or less. This mainly due to growth and color change during the first two years of the infant's life. It is often possible to enlarge your child's current artificial eye if only minor changes are required. This defers the need for a completely new prosthetic eye for at least some period of time.
Between the ages of two thru five, annual replacements are common, but again not always necessary, mainly depending on the amount of tissue settlement in the eye socket and growth of the child. At approximately age three, follow up visits to the Ocularist can be reduced to every six months.
From age 6 thru 12, replacements are required even less frequently. In this age category, it is more common to keep the same prosthetic eye for two or more years, using the enlargement option in between. However, the patient should still continue with follow-up visits every six months.