astigmatism

My Twins, 3 yrs 9 month old, (a boy and a gir) have recently visited the eyes clinic for the 1st time and have been diagnosed having astigmatism by the optometrist. The boy has big gap between the left and right eye (-1.50 and -0.50) therefore she recommended him to wear glassess to correct his vision problem.Whilst the girl although has the same problem however both eyes have not much gap (-1.50 and -1.00) therefore she does not have to wear glassess at this stage. I am not totally confident on the solution of wearing glassess to rectify the problem and would like to ask whether there are any other better solution for my twins vision problem apart from wearing glassess? I have heard about eyes patching which would be recommended for children aged below 6 years old rather than wearing glassess. My question is whether my children would be able to gain their normal vision again with eyes patching rather than wearing glassess as their eyes are still not fully developed and therefore can be corrected with eyes patching? Do we need to visit eyes specialist/opthamalogist to have a proper diagnosis? Thanks

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Patching is used if ambyopia has developed.  You have not mentioned if the vision in one eye for the boy is not correctable to normal vision.  If so, patching is needed in addition to glasses. I doubt he would have he would have abnormal vision with this low of a correction.  One diopter is not much of a difference.  I would recommend to you take your son to a pediatric ophthalmologist.

Dr. O.