11 year old says she can't see

[mmccoy13]

My 11 year old came home the other day and said her vision was blurry and that her eyes hurt. She was also complaining about a sharp pain in her temple, she said it felt like a needle in her brain. I took her to an ophthalmologist and he said her vision was fine, there was no mention that she had dry eyes or anything medically wrong. They dilated her eyes, tested the pressure, ran every test they could and still nothing. He recommended taking her to her normal doctor and possibly having a cat scan. She has complained in the past that at night her eyes are funny. She can't really explain it just, her eyes seem funny. I thought it could just be eye strain and blew it off. She has also always had dark circles under her eyes could this be related? She mentioned that she put one of her friends glasses on and it helped. Could she just be exaggerating all this? She insists that she doesn't want to wear glasses but, she says she knows they would help. I'm completely at a loss over this. I want to believe her because she seems genuinely distressed over this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[mmccoy13]

The ophthalmologist said if he gave her glasses they would just be plastic and nothing more.

[mmccoy13]

I'm not sure we have a neuro-ophthalmologist here, I will have to do some research. I live in Farmington, NM and have limited resources. My daughter is on medicaid though so the costs are covered at least.

[allmymarbles]

One of my daughters at age eight also complained of eye problems and the eye MD could find nothing, except a very minor error of refraction which he said was so slight that he normally would not recommend glasses. However he did feel there was something wrong and suggested the problem might be neurologic. It turned out that it was, but it took four years to diagnose and solve. In the meantime the glasses he prescribed did help her.

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Take her to a neuro-ophthalmologist before spending money on scans.

Dr. O.