cylindrical power in my three year old kid

my three years kid has developed -3.5 and -2.5 cylindrical power , as tested by computer and manually.but he can see distance object clearly without glasses.small alphabets or even shadow figurescan be detected by him with ease.we as parents never seen any abnormality in his behaviour nor he showed any symptoms of low vision in his daily routine. i am totally confused and could not make up my mind whether i will allow him the glasses or not.moreover his paedeatric doctor told me that this is an usual symptom in childr4en and nothing to worry about, beside its totally curable with due care. now my questions are
1. what sort of vision defeciency my child is going through?
2.can i consider him another normal child with glasses?
3. if this is curable then how long it can take?
4. what are the do and dont for such kid?
5. is my child case is an unique one and whether we have to be alert for his future?
i hope you will ease me with proper and directive answers
regards
souvik ghosh

[Forum-OD-MP]

okay there are differing opinions on this, but i will give you mine.

your child needs glasses.  astigmatism over -2.00 diopters is generally agreed to be an "amblyogenic" prescription, meaning that if he does NOT wear glasses, his retinal and visual development may not occur like its supposed to.  thats called "amblyopia", and the longer he goes w/o glasses, the worse it usually gets, and the less likely he will see well later, even if you get glasses for him at a later time.  there's a "critical period" of visual development...and if he is not seeing clearly suring that critical period, then he never will, no matter how "strong" the glasses are later.  google & research "refractive amblyopia".

some kids "grow out of" astigmatism...but not -3.50 diopters of astigmatism.  he wont grow out of that.

-3.50 diopters equates to about 20/200 or so vision.  not very good.  biut regardless...even if he sees well now, no guarantee he will see well later.  he needs full time glasses wear.

this is not "curable".  not like you're thinking of.  glasses fixes the vision and the visual development, but not the problem.  when he removes the glasses he will still see poorly and have astigmatism.  there are sureries to reduce or eliminate astigmatism, but they are not performed on children.  in the U.S. a person must be 18 to have corneal refractive surgery.

no, this is not "unique".

do's & donts:  DO get glasses for him and make him wear them all the time.  DONT wait much longer.