my one year old son is diagnose with optic atrophy

My 1 year old son is diagnose with optic atrophy two months ago. His symptoms are nystagmus and pale retina. I visited three ophthalmology here and all concluded that he is having Optic Atrophy.

Is it possible.. an on set nystagmus amplitude due to optic atrophy can be reduced? There are few direction for nystagmus example circular, horizontal or vertical.... is it possible for this direction to change? Is nystagmus symptom varies from time to time that is cause by Optic Atrophy.

Please advice.

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

You son needs to be under the care of a pediatric ophthalmologist. There is no cure for that type of nystabmus however when he's older a type of eye muscle operation can reduce the nystgmus and the face turn that often accompanies it. It move the "null" point that is the place where the eyes jump least to the straight forward position. By the time your son is an adult maybe there will be a cure for nystagmus.

JCH MD

[jsuthan]

doc,

i have seen some changes in his eyes. His initial symptoms was horizontal nystagmus and now it is vertical. We only see it start to appear 1 or 2 hours after he wakes up.  You probably guess it that we are fighting the fact. We are quite concern that he could be misdiagnose for other illness or toxins.  Even before  he got this symptoms I already has major concern for his health because we have feed him quite allot fish.. farmed fish when he was 9 months old.

thanks

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

Don't go laying a load of guilt on yourselves. It's very very very unlikely that any amount of farm fish would cause this.

JCH MD

[jsuthan]

guilty is just one part... i am trying to recover him and odds are against me. I have forgotten to mention that he also having weight issue - http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Child-Nutrition/failing-retina-and-poor-weight/show/985971 .. i look at nutrition because there is a feeling he could be having  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_and_nutritional_optic_neuropathy..

We did consult  paediatric ophthalmologist and ask just to monitor his condition. The reason I ask too much in my first post because we seen improvement in his vision. His next appoint is in august.

my second son is one his way... in order to safe my son's sight in future should we consider baby cord saving? I am not sure if the technology is heading on umbilical cord or any genetic work.

Thank you for you advice... it is heart breaking when suddenly my son having this problem.

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

You would need to ask about saving chord blood/tissue of a neuroophthalmologist and/or a pediatric genetic expert.

JCH MD

[jsuthan]

Quick check.. does food allergy such as milk ever caused retina failure? I am asking because I notice my sons weight started to decide after start taking infant formula but we didn't notice any allergy symptoms. He did  had ear infection on and off.

[DOLI123]

have a pain on the top of my eye,eyes are blurriy. need cure. did some breahing exercie ,really helps. breath from one nose and tae out frm other . 10 minutes really helps
breathing exercise really help for everything.

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

Food allergy does not cause retina failure.  

Breathing is good exercise and something most people will do for life.

JCH MD