Eye patch on child's BAD eye??????????

I have a question. My 6-year old son has just been diagnosed with poor
vision in his left eye and now has to wear eyeglasses (with just one
corrective lens). His left eye is also a lazy eye as a result, and his
ophthalmologist has prescribed an eye patch--to be worn for about 2 months,
9 hours a day--on the good eye to train the bad one. The doctor said it was
important to remove the patch for the few remaining hours of the day to help
the brain adjust.

My ex has seen a friend of his who's an ophthalmologist and insists that
when my son stays with him that he'll follow his friend's advice: make our
son wear the patch during all his waking hours for 6 days and on the other
eye -- the bad eye-- on the 7th day so as to avoid the good eye from getting
"lazy."

I've never heard of this and my son's ophthalmologist has advised against
it. My ex will not budge. I am very concerned. Does anyone know whether this
is common practice and whether or not it could be damaging? I'm not so
worried about the patch on the good eye being worn all day (though my son
will hate it) but the 7th-day plan sounds fishy to me.

Thanks in advance to anyone who may have heard of this.

 

Thanks so much for your reply.
It definitely is a "marital battle" of sorts, or could be -- hence my post.
That's the last thing I want. I'm more than open to another course of
treatment, and am more than open to a second opinion, provided it's provided
by a doctor who's actually seen our child (which the other doctor hasn't). I
did a lot of research and hadn't found any references to patching the bad
eye, which my son's ophthalmologist advised against, so I thought I'd check
it out here. It's reassuring to know that this isn't completely off the
wall. Thanks again for your informative reply.

 

Actually, there are many references to patching the bad eye. This is done
to prevent "occlusion amblyopia" in the good eye. At six years, the risk
of occlusion amblyopia is thought to be quite low. A rule of thumb is one
day of occlusion of the amblyopic eye for each year or the child's age,
followed by one day of occlusion of the non-amblyopic eye. I think that
both doctors are correct.

DrG

 

An interesting thread. I have anisometropia and although i can see
20/20 with my right eye it is definately a poorer seeing eye than my
left eye. At age 20 my eyes were more or less identical.

In the 'natural vision improvement' community patching an eye for 6
days at a time would be considered unnecessary or even unwise, however
i have often considered some form of lengthy patching might improve my
right eye.

Using the one day per year rule that would mean me patching for 48
days.

Whatever would happen i am sure that when that patch was removed it
would be a surprising and interesting experience for me.

I am kind of tempted to give it a go!