The Doctors: Young Girl’s Vision Saved With Facebook Photo
The Doctors talked about a young girl whose vision was saved after a friend of the mother noticed in a Facebook photo of her that her eyes were different colors.
It was a touching story heard around the world. When Tara posted a cute photo of her 3-year-old daughter Rylee on Facebook, she received a strange message from a friend. The friend said she noticed that one of Rylee’s eyes was glowing more from the flash than the other in the photo. The friend didn’t want to alarm her, but it could be a sign of something serious. Tara took a bunch more photos of Rylee, and her left eye glowed more in each one of the photos.
The Doctors: What Is Coat’s Disease?
So Tara took her daughter to a pediatric ophthalmologist, who did a vision test and discovered Rylee couldn’t see out of her left eye. Tara had no idea Rylee was having vision problems. Rylee was diagnosed with Coat’s Disease, a rare condition in which the retinal capillaries break, leaking cholesterol into the back of the eye. This leakage causes the retina to swell, leading to detachment of the retina and total vision loss. Luckily for little Rylee, Tara’s friend’s message came just in time. They were able to treat Rylee before she lost total vision in her left eye.
Rylee has had two surgeries on her eye since being diagnosed and she seems to be improving. Tara said she thought it was important to raise awareness.
The Doctors: What You Can Learn From Your Child’s Photo
Tara and Rylee joined The Doctors on stage and Dr. Jim Sears, a pediatrician, said there are a lot of things you can learn from pictures of the eye. It’s important that they’re the same color after the flash. If one is red and one is yellow, or one is red and one is white, it means different things. In Rylee’s case, the reason why one eye glowed more than the other. It’s because in a child with Coat’s Disease, the blood vessels leak in the retina and cholesterol leaks behind the retina. So when a picture is taken of Rylee, the flash is reflecting off the leaked cholesterol.
The Doctors: Vision Problems In Kids
Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, a certified ophthalmologist, said that kids aren’t always able to articulate vision problems, because they might not know something is wrong. Flash photography is a great way to figure out things like this. In a normal eye, the flash should make the eye appear red in a photo. The light is reflecting off the blood vessels in that case. In Coat’s Disease, the pupil appears yellow.
You should be concerned if you see any discrepancy in the color of eyes in a photo. If one pupil appears white, that can indicate a tumor in the eye.
At the end of the segment, The Doctors gave Rylee a bunch of Princess gear.
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