At Northwest Eye Design, we create prosthetic eyes for children and adults. Eye loss is very difficult at any age, but especially for a child and their family. We have been encouraged by many children who have shown resilience and quickly adjusted to their eye loss. It is with this hope that we come alongside families. We encourage the whole family to be part of the restoration process. Providing an open atmosphere and a positive approach helps kids feel comfortable and proud of their prosthesis. Seeing a child smile back at you with two sparkling eyes is a true joy.
Prosthetic Eyes for Children
Greta's Journey
“She looks beautiful. People who do not know about her eye often tell me that my daughter has beautiful eyes.”
Microphthalmia
Children born with a small or under-developed eye may be candidates for conformer expansion therapy. This effective treatment begins with clear expansion conformers to gently grow the eyelids and socket tissues. Slowly increasing the size of the clear plastic conformers will continue for several weeks or months until symmetry with the natural eye is achieved. A scleral shell is then created to match the child’s natural eye. Expansion will continue with adding volume and edges onto the scleral shell as the child grows.
Ethan's Journey
“Ethan’s eye looks SO REAL and he gets compliments from strangers all the time about how beautiful his eyes are. They have NO IDEA that one is a prosthesis.”
Scleral Shells
Children with a small or damaged eye may be candidates for a scleral shell. A scleral shell fits over the existing eye like a large contact lens, covering the entire front surface. A shell can be worn full time and can have very good movement depending on the movement of the natural tissues.
Molly's Journey
“I’m glad I have a shell because no one can tell that it’s not a normal eye.”
Families
Eye loss affects the entire family so we encourage the whole family to be part of the restoration process. We feel very privileged to create high-quality prosthetic eyes for children and to walk beside our younger patients and their families on this journey. Smiles tell us a lot about the experience of others — take a look at these smiling faces!
Fletcher's Journey
“Hardly anyone ever notices that Fletch is wearing a prosthesis and he looks amazing. I wish my scared-new-mom-self had known how small of an issue this was going to be for our Fletch and how he would be able to do all the things other kids do.”
A Healing Art
Watch this award-winning documentary filmed at our office in 2009 which stars some of our young patients. Follow these kids on their journey from eye loss to restoration, a path of hope, wholeness and inspiration.
Sarjo's Journey
“I lost the vision in my left eye when I was five years old. At first I was nervous about getting my eye and didn’t know how it would look and feel. The process was easy. Everyone at Northwest Eye Design was very supportive and just as excited as I was.”
“I love my prosthetic eye! It is a perfect eye and I am so happy to have an eye that looks just like me! I have more confidence meeting new people knowing that they see me and not my bad eye. When I saw my prosthetic eye for the first time I knew that it was the best decision I ever made.”
