What are causes of blurred vision in a child?

[Katy1962]

My 11 year old daughter keeps complaining of blurred vision, occasionally when reading and continually for objects far away. Her Optometrist cannot correct it with glasses, and her pediatric opthamologist said her eyes look totally healthy through the various tests he ran. (The last test he said would be an MRI which we have not done.) He suggested that there is not physical reason for her blurriness, that perhaps it was her body's reaction to stress, search for attention, reaction to being bullied, etc. He thought the "power of suggestion" might cure the problem, (if we tell her her eyes are getting better, they will.) He says this is very common in girls in her age range. However, this is just totally out of character for my daughter. I cannot reconcile that with her personality or behaviors. Someone suggested that perhaps the blurred vision was a symptom of diabetes, but she has not exhibited excessive thirst, urination or anything else traditionally associated with diabetes. Do we just let this go, and check back on it in a couple of months as the Opthamologist suggested? Help!

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

You need to discuss this first with her pediatrician or family MD.  Needing or not needing glasses would not cause this. This is not necessarily a serious problem but you do need to report it to her MD.

JCH MD

[nickkkky34]

My 13 yr old daughter today told me at school she had games during break she drank some water then suddenly her eyes went blank could'nt see nothing for a couple of seconds, when she was born she had bad jurndice for yrs she had running eyes her doc gave her reading glosses, please help me

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

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[fibigreene]

I can see this post is very old but just in case you never got to the bottom of your problem which I am sure you did. I have just had a similar diagnoses from my daughter and after exactly the same run around you got. Behavioural problems, diabetes,etc etc.... until I learnt that one of the most common-but ignored- symptom of dyslexia is blurred vision when looking at the white board at school with accompanying headaches...  opticians should also be offering this test immediately if vision is blurred but no sign of eye damage. My daughter was also cleared by the opticians. Hope this helps or anybody else that is reading this.

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

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[Meejhm]

My daughter has for a few years randomly complained about blurry vision and as you mentioned she also suggests when she moves one eye like cross eyed it makes her see clear.
I also saw an optometrist who suggested her eyes may be tired. Nothing was wrong. She is complaining again. I am certain it is not made up as she loves to read at be time and couldn't.
I am going to take her to doctors as our doctor is usually very thorough. But any ideas woul be good.

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

You are headed in the right direction to a neurologist. The most common diagnosis would be childhood migraine.
JCH MD

[clodster21]

My daughter just told me yesterday she gets blurry vision out of her right eye thats in the shape of a circle. She is 8 years old. We went to the optometrist and her vision is good. She is the only one of my 3 kids that gets headaches once in a while. Her doctor told us to keep a diary and that it's probably an occular migrane. I dont want to wait until her symptoms get worse.  read something today that said her symptoms could be occular migrane or a mini stroke. I will be getting her to a neurologist soon and hopefully rule out anything that she may or may mot have.

[seeingblue]

My 11 year old son was seen for a rutine eye exam. No previous issuses. Doc could not see any reason why he couldn't see20/20. Out of his left eye.only seeing 20/30. Doc did many different test and was still puzzled. So I'm waiting to meet with some kind of specialest. My son does get migrains and the muscles in the left side of his neck are always tight

[erinlattee]

My daughter is 14 and suddenly became not able to see. She says it is blurry close up and far away, all she can see is outlines and colors. She just started cheer and high school  and we have had to make adjustments due to this. Her teachers are very understanding but for how long? This is a real problem. We took her to a pediatric Ophthalmolgist and he said her vision was fine and that it was in her head. WHAT? I am very confessed. She is a very senstive girl with Hyprocondric tendencies... But of course being her mom I want to take her to more doctors to make sure. Lyme Disease is a Epodemic where we live and I was wondering if she has that? But would the eye doctor have brought that up if he thought soo?

[padmapriya]

My 6 years old daughter has been diagonised with blurred vision with power of 3 on the both the eyes.she is a healthy child,we are really worried that she got this at this small age. Is there any way to improve her vision and get rid of the glasses?

[svetli]

My son, now 6, was diagnosed with Migranes last year. He had a MRI and neurological evaluation and thankfully they found only cist in his brain. He has frequent headaches (not always migrane). When we were going through the examinations last year, he did not complain about blurry vision. This week, however, he said that sometimes he gets blurry vision in school or at home.  He claims that if he rolls his eyes upward it sometimes goes away.  Is it something I should be concerned about?  His vision is normally 20/20. Thank you

Lucy

[Sandra M Brown, MD]

In a child you don't get diabetic eye symptoms without rip-roaring diabetes.  These symptoms also do not affect only one eye.  Do NOT ask her about her vision.  If she makes noises to her teacher, advise the teacher to "play it low key" and not to make any accommodations to the complaints.

[Katy1962]

Thanks for your input.  She does not have a cell phone, and only uses the computer for homework at this point. I am also assuming that the presence of any diabetic eye symptom would have been detected by her opthamologist. We will be keeping an "eye" on the situation!

[Sandra M Brown, MD]

In my (extensive) experience, the number 1 cause for mysteriously blurred vision in one eye in a female child this age is "making it up".  And I cannot tell you how many times I have been assured that this would be totally out of character for the child.  Also, the types of "out of focus" problems that affect children do not cause constant blurred distance vision and occasional blurred near vision...but she doesn't know that.

Recently I have found one other cause for this type of complaint, which is too much phone texting combined with computer time.  Hopefully a child her age neither has a cell phone nor plays on the phones of other children.  But if so, immediately eliminate her texting ability.  Limit her computer time to "homework projects only".  TV or videos or games not more than 30 minutes per day total.

She has already had an evaluation by a pediatric ophthalmologist.  I would let it rest.  Based on your information, I see no need for an MRI (which is a suggestion of desperation typically made to soothe the parents, not treat the child).