Tests and treatments

How do antibiotics work?

Antibiotics prevent or treat infections caused by bacteria. They do this by killing bacteria or preventing them from growing. There are many different types of antibiotics and you have been given the best one for your problem. It might take a few days before you feel better.

How do antibiotics work?

Antibiotics prevent or treat infections caused by bacteria. They do this by killing bacteria or preventing them from growing. Eye drops or ointments are generally given to treat infections at the front of the eye. For some infections, you might be given antibiotic tablets, capsules or syrup.

There are many different types of antibiotics and you have been given the best one for your problem. It might take a few days before you feel better.

How do they work?

Antiviral medications are used to treat infections caused by viruses. They stop viruses from spreading or multiplying. Eye ointment or drops are used to treat simple viral eye infections. Tablets or suspensions might also be required in more severe cases. It can take a few days before your eyes feel or look better.

How do they work?

Antiviral medications are used to treat infections caused by viruses. They stop viruses from spreading or multiplying. Eye ointment or drops are used to treat simple viral eye infections. Tablets or suspensions might also be required in more severe cases, or if the infection is not responding to eye drops. It can take a few days before your eyes feel or look better.

Botulinum toxin can be used in the treatment of squint (misaligned eyes) in both adults and children. Sometimes it is a one off treatment and sometimes a course of injections are needed. Your doctor will be able to explain which applies to you.

What is it?

You have a natural lens inside your eye that helps you to see. The lens should be clear like glass but a cataract makes the lens cloudy. During cataract surgery the surgeon removes the cloudy lens from your eye and might replace it with a man-made lens.

How does the world look to me?

If you have cataracts as a baby or a child you may not realise it. You might think your eyesight is normal and that everyone sees things the way you do. But cataracts usually make your vision less clear and in some children vision may be very blurry.

Why do I have to have one?

Not all cataracts need an operation, but having a bad cataract is a problem that can only be fixed by surgery. Currently there isn’t any other medical treatment which gets rid of a cataract but sometimes glasses will help you to see better. The doctor will talk to you and your parents to help decide whether surgery is the best thing to help you right now.

What will happen after?

After your operation you will be given eye drops to help your eye get better. The doctor will need to see you in the clinic regularly. One of your eyes might have weaker vision and need patching treatment. Some children need a contact lens or glasses to see afterwards.

Are there any side-effects?

Children’s eyes are delicate and sometimes there can be a problem, such as an infection or too high pressure in the eye, which needs more treatment after the operation. The eye doctors will keep a check on you and treat any problem which happens.

Will the operation work?

Most children do see better after the operation.

How do they work?

Corticosteroids or ‘steroids’ treat inflammation (redness, soreness, swelling of the eye). Inflammation may be caused by injury, infection, allergy or occur after surgery. Corticosteroid eye drops and ointments sometimes also contain an antibiotic to prevent or treat an infection.

Counselling at the Richard Desmond Children’s Eye Centre at Moorfields provides a safe and confidential space where children and young people from the age of three to eighteen can talk to someone who will listen, empathise and help them to better understand what they’re going through. It can lead to improvements in family relationships, friendships and self-esteem, as well as enabling you to better process your thoughts and regulate your emotions.

Why am I being referred?

A doctor has referred you for electrophysiology tests to measure how the visual system deals with visual information. The tests can help to spot the reason of a visual problem. They are also useful for checking the development of a visual condition or the effects of any treatment.

What is a visual electrophysiology test?

When you look at something, an image of the object is projected onto the retina at the back of your eye. The retina converts this optical image into very small electrical signals, which pass along the optic nerve to the brain, where the sensation of ‘seeing’ occurs. Visual electrophysiology measures these very small signals produced by the eye and the brain.

What is it? 

An examination under an anaesthetic is a long way of describing one of the easiest operations carried out in a children’s eye hospital. Nothing much happens except the doctor gets to have a good look at your eye (the examination part) while you are sleeping (the anaesthetic part). Because you are asleep you don’t move around so much which makes it a lot easier for the doctor. 

How does it work? 

If your eye is to be examined in this way you will be brought to a children’s ward and given a medicine that makes you sleep. The medicine is called a general anaesthetic. Once you are asleep you will be taken to the operating theatre to be examined. 

The operation is very quick and you will be in and out of the hospital in a day.  Your parents or carer can stay nearby at all times. You will all have a chance to chat to the doctor after they have examined your eye and told you what they have found. 

Following the examination it is very important that you have plenty to drink and try to eat some food if you can.

Why do I have to have one?

If an eye doctor called an ophthalmologist can study your eye really closely they will get a much better idea of how to treat any problems it may have with seeing.

Sometimes when they are examining your eye while you are sleeping they discover something which they believe should be treated immediately. They would then do the operation while you continued to sleep. This is most common if you have an eye condition called glaucoma.

What will happen afterwards?

You may feel a little bit sick for a while but after a day or so you will be back to normal. 

What is it?

FA stands for fluorescein angiography. It’s a way of studying what is happening at the back of your eye. The blood in your body flows through tiny blood vessels. An FA helps a doctor see exactly where the blood vessels are in your eye, their size and any problems they might have.

How does it work?

The pupil is the dark circle in the centre of your eye which acts as a sort of window into your eye. First you will be given eye drops to make the pupil grow larger.

Then a small amount of harmless yellow dye is injected into your arm. Some special cream on your arm will mean you won’t feel the injection much. The yellow dye travels through your body and eventually passes through the blood vessels inside your eye. At this point some photographs are taken of the back of your eye.

Why do I have to have one?

An FA helps the doctor make a diagnosis. A diagnosis means studying a problem, then making a decision based on what you have learnt. If the FA shows that the vessels at the back of your eye are swollen or have something else wrong with them, the doctor can then decide how best to help you.

What will happen after?

You probably won’t have any unpleasant side effects from an FA, but you should stay at the hospital for at least half an hour afterwards just to make sure. Some people do feel a bit sick or itchy. The important thing is to drink plenty of water to help flush the yellow dye out of your body.

If you feel unwell after you have left you should go to the nearest hospital and let them know.

Glaucoma means that the pressure in the eye is too high. The high pressure damages the optic nerve that takes vision information from the eye to the brain. Glaucoma operations bring the pressure in the eye down and stop damage to the optic nerve.

Read more about glaucoma surgery

How do they work?

Lubricant eye drops/ointments are used to treat dry and irritated eyes and sometimes to help the eye to heal. They work in various ways – most simply wet or moisturise the eyes, others can remove excess tear mucus made by the eye. Sometimes, eyes with a dry surface can appear watery, which occurs when dryness is caused by the tear film not clinging to the eye.

How do they work?

These eye drops or ointments relax the muscles of the eye so as to widen (dilate) the pupil, which is the central black area in the middle of the iris, the coloured part of the eye. These medicines also relax the focusing muscles of the eye, which means that most children will also experience blurred vision

What is it?

Do you need to wear glasses? That is what a refraction test can find out. When you visit an eye hospital your eyes may be tested by someone called an ophthalmologist. They want to know how well you can see with each eye. One of the tests they do is called refraction. The refraction test will help the ophthalmologist decide if wearing glasses will help you to see better.

How does it work?

During the test you will sit a short distance from a chart with letters of the alphabet on it. The letters at the top of the chart are very large and the letters at the bottom very small. The ophthalmologist will ask you to cover each eye in turn and read the letters aloud, from top to bottom. This is to find out just how clearly each eye can see. You may also be asked to hold a page and read some lines from it.

You will then have to wear a trial frame. This is a bit like a pair of glasses without any lenses in it.  The ophthalmologist will slip different lenses into the trial frame to see if they make your eyesight any better. They will also shine a light into your eyes while you wear the trial frame. 

Why do I have to have one? 

Refraction is done when the ophthalmologist wants to know if your vision can be improved with glasses. You may have a problem with your eyes that could require an operation. But you might not need the operation straight away if glasses can help you to see better.

Maybe you have already had an operation. In this case, refraction will show any changes in your eyes and help find a new pair of glasses that are suitable.

What will happen after? 

After refraction you will given a prescription for a new pair of glasses. There are plenty of cool styles and colours of frames available, so choose the ones you like the most.

What is it?

You will know what an X-ray is. It’s a way of making a picture of the inside of your body to see, for instance, if you have a broken bone.  Ultrasound is a bit similar. It is used to make a picture of the inside of your eye. Just like an X-ray, ultrasound doesn’t hurt at all, takes only a few minutes, and you won’t need to be asleep while it happens.

How does it work?

Do you know how a bat can “see” in the dark by making high pitched sounds? The bat listens to the echoes, which tells it the position of nearby objects and food. Dolphins and whales can do this also.

Ultrasound works in a similar way. You close your eye and something that looks a bit like a small wand is moved over it. The wand sends ultrasound into your eye, but you won’t hear anything or feel any pain. The echoes bounce back to a computer. The computer uses the echoes to make images which show what the inside of your eye looks like.

Why do I have to have one?

Someone called an ophthalmologist may need to examine your eye. To do this, they will usually just shine a light into your eye. But if you have some blood in your eye, or a cataract, it can make it hard for them to get a really good look. So they will use ultrasound instead.

It might be necessary to know the length of your eye, from front to back. You couldn’t really use a tape measure to find out, could you? Again, ultrasound would be used. 

What will happen after?

You will be sitting down during an ultrasound test. Afterwards you can see the images of the inside of your eye and the ophthalmologist will tell you and your parents what the pictures show.