Unblocking Tear Ducts

We took Dougie to the pediatric eye specialist yesterday. They dilated Dougie's eyes and did a basic check-up. The doctor concluded that he did indeed have a blocked tear duct. Otherwise, his eyes are developing normally. This is particularly good news because it means Dougie doesn't likely have strabismus. So, the doctor said they could open the duct or we could wait longer and see if it opened on its own. Based on the number of infections he's had and the fact that the longer you wait, the less likely it is to open and the more difficult the opening procedure becomes, we decided to have it done.

********* Procedure Detail *********

Dougie was taken to a procedure room. After we went through the details and signed all the necessary forms the physician's assistant took him to the table. They wrapped him in a blanked and then strapped him to a board. He did surprisingly well with that. Once they tried to hold his head still and put in the cleansing eye drops, he started to scream. A second drop was applied to numb his eye and duct. Once that had time to take affect, they inserted a small probe into the top opening of the duct. This was used to pop open the bottom of the duct (nearest the nose). The entire procedure didn't last more than 3 minutes. We picked Dougie up and he stopped screaming quite shortly afterwards.

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We have to apply eye drops for the next few days to make sure there won't be an infection but so far, Dougie seems to be doing well with everything. His eye was even dry this morning when he got up. We'll know for sure if it worked within 2 weeks but it's looking very promising.