Eyeball Issues..Seriously and how real is this

Bean has been complaining for awhile that the board at school looks fuzzy off and on. After a few requests from her I finally scheduled an appointment with a optometrist.    We went this last week and though she has a slight astigmatism and slight farsightedness, glasses would only be of minor help her real issue is her eyes don't work together.  WHAT??

At what point do you look at a doctor and ask them what they are smoking, her eyes don't work together?  I have heard of begin cross eyed, lazy eye, but her eyes not working together is a new one for me.

We are following up with more testing and I am going to seek another opinion most likely, but the current recommendation is vision therapy.  Seeing that I had never heard of this before I went to the internet.

As a parent with a child who seems to always have the one off diagnosis I go looking for answers a lot and what will work best to help is a constant search.  Why can't she just be blind as a bat and need glasses was my first thought, but next was what is this and what can I do to help her. Really as a parent though I think a lot of websites can take advantage of us parents, we will do anything to make it better and fix it and sometimes take the risk on something pretty out there in the hopes it will help.  When I go out looking to research something, particularly as it pertains to the kids I hope to find the answers or a clear route to take, that is rarely what is there.  The reality of learning issues and being an individual is that we all have things that are hard and easy, we all have challenges. For some kids those challenges are life effecting things and there are no miracles or clear paths, just being an advocate and making sure the people around your child know where they are at is sometimes all you can do. Ultimately as parents we are responsible for the choices we make in treatment for the one off situations and I want to make sure I am making the most logical educated decisions, so I head to the internet to learn and get frustrated.

Looking for information on the internet can be a mixed blessing and I learned with something like vision therapy there are a lot of mixed reports. When I start looking into something on the internet I use a search engine like Google, but I also looked into a few skeptic sites like skepchic or skeptic and medical sites like the mayo clinic.  I try to focus on factual data that is evidence based, anecdotal data is great and I get what works for one person may not work for another, but I don't want to sink my money into something that really won't likely be useful.  What I learned in my vision therapy search is that there are some people claiming it is the cure to a host of learning disabilities and some people saying it will help with vision issues, but is quack like in all other respects. Researching something like vision therapy has to be done skeptically, I make sure the site I read aren't associated with treatment.  The reason I do this is if you are trying to get my money you are going to only put the positives up and not the questions or inaccuracies.  Additionally I tend in my initial research to stay away from forums, anyone can say anything and though this might be a place to get the words to search Google with I don't have the knowledge initially to know what is and isn't crap that people are saying.  The internet usually gets me just as many questions as answers and can be full of garbage that needs to be sorted through, but can also educate and give you a great jumping off point to find those other people and professionals that can help figure out the best next paths.

So what has it done for me in the search for vision therapy.  The first thing is, I know if this doctor starts talking at all about this fixing Bean's learning issues we are done, most likely he isn't the doctor for us. Additionally I want to see in any further discussion about vision therapy conversations around tracked progress, hearing she will be fine in a few months will be another reason to move on. If I hear this won't fix her learning issues, but may help her with growing her eye strength or something of that nature I will listen a lot harder. I will also use this blog, email, my phone and anything else to reach out to all those people who may be able to give me a little more insight into what this all means and the best routes moving forward, which may explain why I am a total over sharer.

How do you research the net, what do you look for when trying to find answers? Do you know anything about vision therapy, hook a girl up.