retinoblastoma concerns

[jolene555]

I am very anxious tonight. It's 11:15pm and we are leaving in 6 hours for a trip to Kansas where my 3-year-old is going to be a flower girl. It's very exciting.

So I wanted to clear my memory card from my camera. I uploaded all the photos to my comp and I went through them just to see what I had. One of the pictures has me a little worried. In one picture my daughter has a "red eye" only it's white.

Have you ever heard of this retinoblastoma thing? I remember getting an email about this ages ago about ho when your child gets a "white" eye it could be cancerous, and now I find one and I am freaking out a little bit.

I plan on calling her doctor as soon as we get back into town, but in the meantime I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this? Does it matter if it's a digital camera? What if in the photo she isn't looking strait at the camera? Is this all phoney? My head is spinning.


Jo

[MyBabeMaddie]

I get white eyes in digital photos all the time! It happens more especially with lighter eyes, I wouldn't worry too much! Can you see in in real life, or is it just with the camera?

[kit_kats_mom]

I had this problem with my oldest, and she is the only one in our family with light eyes.

She was seen by an eye doctor and given a clean bill of health. According to him, If you only see it in one picture, it's probably just a slight cross or something. It's when the white eye shows up repeatedly in photos (and it's the same eye) that you should get concerned.

Of course, if you are worried, take her to the dr. It can't hurt.

[cameragirl21]

i used to work for a retinoblastoma specialist and saw lots of retinoblastoma kids. that of course does not make me the expert that the dr i worked for is but i can tell you that you'd see this "cat's eye reflex" on her eye itself, not just in pics..that can just be poor picture quality. Also, just one picture among many normal ones is also unlikely to be retinoblastoma because you'd see it in several or likely all of the pictures.
take a look at her eyes and see if you see a cat's eye type look in either of them. if so, that's when it's time to be worried. if it's just in one picture, i wouldn't be alarmed but if it would make you feel better, get it checked out.
bear in mind that peds are not always trained for this and i've seen cases where a kid lost both eyes instead of one because the ped missed the signs of retinoblastoma so you'd be better off going to an ophthamologist.
good luck and like i said, if you don't see it in her eye in real life vs just one picture, then it's probably nothing.
take care.
btw, here's a pic of what retinoblastoma looks like, http://health.indiamart.com/eye-care/gifs/...noblastoma2.jpg

[jolene555]

Well we haven't gone to the doc, yet, as we had a loooong weekend. I am not as concerned about it after speaking to family members and after reading all the replies here. I understand now that this isn't an uncommon thing to happen with persons with light colored eyes. However, my daughter has very dark eyes, so much that I cannot see her pupil very well at all. She has an upcoming well visit and I will adress it then.

[bogysmom]

Thank goodness I found this forum. I was having the same concerns about my 3 year old daughter and some pictures that had the cats reflex. She does not have any other symptoms listed in this forum so that makes me feel a lot better. Not to mention that it has only happened 5 times out of 10,000 photos. However we have found 3 pictures taken in the last week that have the cats reflex and only in her right eye. She too has very dark eyes to the point you can't see her pupil. I am still concerned but not quite as much. I have a well visit at the end of May so I think I might wait until then to have her checked. I would like to know how your daughters well visit goes regarding the possibility of retinoblastoma and if anyone has any more information for me, I appreciate any! Thanks.

[anika]

I’m glad you didn’t have the problem with the retinoblastoma, because in my case it was not like this. I saw a white eye on one of the photos of my 14 months old girl. I brought the camera with this picture to the pediatrician and she said that it is better to be seen by an eye doctor. In very rare cases it could be cancer. But when we went to the next doctor, he said it is retinoblastoma and then the time for us stopped. Within 2-3 weeks we had to do a lot of test, operation and so on. Thanks God everything is behind our back now. My daughter is 3 years old in good health, but I’m glad I reacted fast and went to the doc.