Pale Optic Nerve

My 12 year old Autistic son was diagnosed with a Pale Optic Nerve at his last Eye Dr visit.
The Eye Dr felt that my son's vision problems are being caused by the Pale Optic Nerve and if we could find what was causing the Pale Optic Nerve and fix that, that his vision would be okay.
My son has a Pineal Cyst, so the Eye Dr immediately felt that this had probably grown and was causing the problem.
My son went for an MRI last Friday and the results concluded that is cyst has not grown and is not big enough to be causing any problems.   There were no other brain issues that were found.
My question is, if nothing in the Brain is causing the Pale Optic Nerve, what is the cause?
Can this be corrected or will he lose his sight?
He was given a pair of magnification glasses to wear, but the Dr. said they may help and they may not.
Is there anything that can be done?
Thanks!

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

A palle ON in a 12 year old with a normal MRI suggests a form of optic atrophy. I suggest you ask his ophthalmologist to refer you to a neuroophthalmologist or go to www.aao.org and find one near you. Glasses will not help optic atrophy and usually the condition is permanent. Need to find the cause.

JCH MD

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

A palle ON in a 12 year old with a normal MRI suggests a form of optic atrophy. I suggest you ask his ophthalmologist to refer you to a neuroophthalmologist or go to www.aao.org and find one near you. Glasses will not help optic atrophy and usually the condition is permanent. Need to find the cause.

JCH MD

[DesertMama77]

Thank you for your answer.
We are working on getting an appt with the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.  I will update after the appt.

[John C Hagan III, MD, FACS, FAAO]

good luck
JCH MD

[DesertMama77]

Dr. Hagan,
I wanted to update you on my son.
He had an appt with a wonderful Pediatric Neuro-Ophthalmologist, Dr. Mark Borchert, at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles yesterday.  Dr. Borchert is known among the community of being great with Special Needs kids and he was!
My son indeed has Optic Atrophy, with no Neurological causes.  His Optic Nerve was described as Pale and Thin.  We were told that it would take years for this to get this way and that most likely the Optometrist that saw my son for glasses (a referral from the School District) did not dilate his eyes.
I checked on this today and he was correct, the Optometrist did not dilate his eyes.  
Dr. Borchert said that it was most likely caused by a trauma at birth, which there weren't any, he was full term, normal vaginal delivery with a 10 on the apgar scale or from some other head trauma years ago.
I informed him that my son used to bang his head when he was an infant and even though we tried to prevent him from doing so by wrapping his crib with padding and plumbing insulation, that he still managed to bang his head and floors, walls, people.. etc
He felt this was very likely the cause.
We go back in 6 months for a recheck to make sure this isn't progressive.  We were told that only @ 1% of this type of Optic Atrophy was progressive, so good odds, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Thanks again for your help!
Desert Mama77

[DesertMama77]

I forgot to mention that this is affecting both on my son's eyes.
Which from what I hear, is pretty rare.
Thanks again!