Eye Twitching & Jordan

Posted by Jeffrey on October 17, 2008

Back in June or July, I forgot when - Jordan developed this habit of twitching his eyes. Twitching as in blinking slowly and shutting his eyelids tightly until you can see his cheeks were raised. It was as if he can’t shut his eyes enough. At first it was just a random act, then as the days went he was doing it vigorously.

We were worried and asked him why he was doing that, his answers varied from blurred vision to itchy eyes. However most of the time his answer was “I don’t know”. Even his nursery teacher called me and asked if we were aware of his habit. She was worried there was something wrong with his eyes.

We looked it up online and read many toddlers have this phase. Most of them were just seeking attention, probably because of changing surrounding. Since my wife was into her 3rd trimester then, we suspected it could be affecting him since we were telling him of the baby’s arrival more frequently.

My mother in law said maybe he spent too much time playing in front of the computer - but to me that was not the case as he played about 1-2 hours per week. He was always playing when my in-laws were at our place so it seems that he was playing every day.

Many of the advices given by other parents were just to ignore it but just like any parents, we couldn’t sleep on it. Since I am a good friend of Prof. Dr. Muthu (kunun), a well-known eye-specialist, I called him up to ask for advice. Instead he asked me to bring Jordan to his clinic that Saturday.

The few days before Saturday was a worrying wait. I even braced myself in case he needed to wear glasses, I would get him a rounded-shape glasses like Harry Potter so that he will still look cute

 Finally at the clinic, the good doctor first made a poodle out of a balloon and gave it to Jordan. Skilled with balloons juga tu doctor tu hehe. So after checking his eyes through a giant binocular-thingy, the dialogue between the doctor and nurse went like this.

Doc : So nurse, how? Need to do injection now? 

* at this point I was surprised, one that he needs an injection and second, why was he asking his nurse? I thought he should be telling the nurse instead. Wah terror pulak this nurse I thought.

Nurse : No - give him 2 weeks first. If not, then we do the injection.

Doc : Jordan - do you know what is an injection?

Jordan : Yes

Doc : Do you know where we inject?

Jordan : No

Doc : We use a giant needle and inject on your eye! (then the doc looked at me and winked)

Jordan : Ouh… *paused* … painful ah?

Doc : Yes, the big girl who went in before you cried.

Jordan : Ohh.

Doc : but don’t worry, I will give you some medicines to help your eyes heal ok? If in 2 weeks you still have problems, then we do the injection ok?

Jordan : Okay.

Then the nurse asked him to lie down on the bed and gave a few drops to clean his eye. I think it was just a normal “cleaning” solution. The doctor then whispered to us, there is nothing wrong with his eye. He probably enjoyed the attention given, so we should lessen it. He also told us to give him the medicine (actually they are just Vitamin C) and tell him his eyes are getting better. If he twitches again, just remind him of the injection haha.

So we understood what the doctor was trying to do and we played along. At home, after giving him his “medicine”, he would say something like “wah my eyes like getting better already oh“. Though he twitches sometimes but the frequency went south dramatically.

After 2 weeks or so, he was completely “healed”!

I am sharing this in case your child also develop this habit - not that I am asking you to completely ignore it. It doesn’t hurt to get your child checked just to be sure. Nasib lah the doctor didn’t charge us for the consultation, even the vitamin C also we got for free.

I am just really glad Jordan doesn’t look like Harry Potter now.

Buli juga lah - kira cute juga hehe.

Posted under: Jordan