Pediatric Eye Care & Strabismus Treatment in Bluffton & Hilton Head

Dr. Erin Benjamin completed a fellowship in pediatric ophthalmology and adult strabismus at Akron Children's Hospital, following her ophthalmology residency. That is a year of subspecialty training beyond becoming an ophthalmologist, devoted specifically to children's eyes and to eye misalignment at any age.

It is worth saying plainly: this is not commonly available in our area. Families in Beaufort County have frequently travelled to Savannah or Charleston for it.

Children's eye exams and when to start

Children rarely report vision problems, because they have no basis for comparison. A child who has always seen poorly out of one eye assumes that is how eyes work. This is why the schedule matters more than waiting for a complaint.

Children are seen for a comprehensive eye exam on a schedule rather than on symptoms. The generally recommended schedule is a newborn check, again at 6 to 12 months, again around age 3, before starting school at age 5 or 6, and then periodically through the school years.

Bring your child sooner than the schedule if you notice an eye that turns in or out, eyes that do not move together, a white or unusual reflection in photographs, persistent head tilting or squinting, sitting very close to screens, frequent eye rubbing, light sensitivity, or a drooping eyelid. A family history of childhood eye problems, strabismus, or amblyopia is also a reason to come earlier.

A school or pediatrician vision screening is a screening, not an exam. It is genuinely useful and it catches a lot. But it checks distance vision at a single distance and misses a good deal — including farsightedness, which is common in children and often missed precisely because distance vision tests fine.

Amblyopia — "lazy eye"

Amblyopia is reduced vision in an eye that is otherwise healthy, because the brain has learned to favour the other one. It happens when something interferes with clear input early in life: a misaligned eye, a significant difference in prescription between the eyes, or something blocking the visual axis.

The critical fact about amblyopia is the treatment window closes. The visual system develops through roughly age seven to nine. Treated early — with glasses, patching, or drops that temporarily blur the stronger eye — outcomes are often excellent. Treated late, improvement becomes much harder and may not be possible at all.

Amblyopia is also close to invisible from the outside. A child with one perfectly good eye functions normally, does well in school, and gives no indication anything is wrong. This is the strongest argument for examining children on schedule rather than on symptoms.

Strabismus in children and adults

Strabismus is misalignment of the eyes — one turning in, out, up, or down, either constantly or intermittently. In children it can lead to amblyopia and to loss of depth perception, and it is very treatable.

Treatment depends on the type and cause: glasses alone correct some forms entirely, particularly accommodative esotropia; patching addresses accompanying amblyopia; eye muscle surgery repositions the muscles when needed.

Adult strabismus is a genuine differentiator, and it deserves a paragraph of its own. Many adults are told, or simply assume, that nothing can be done — that a childhood eye turn is permanent, or that misalignment appearing later in life is something to live with. That is frequently untrue. Adults develop strabismus from thyroid eye disease, stroke, nerve palsies, injury, complications of cataract surgery, or the decompensation of a childhood condition held in check for decades, and the resulting double vision is disruptive in a way that is hard to overstate.

Treatment for adults can involve prisms in glasses or eye muscle surgery, and results are often very good. The idea that adult strabismus surgery is merely cosmetic is a genuine and persistent misconception — it restores binocular vision, eliminates double vision, and relieves the compensatory head postures people adopt without realising.

Vision and school performance

A child struggling to read, losing their place on the page, avoiding close work, or complaining of headaches after school may simply need glasses. Uncorrected farsightedness in particular makes sustained near work exhausting, and children rarely articulate that — they just stop wanting to do it.

An eye examination is a quick thing to rule in or out before concluding a child has a reading or attention difficulty. It is not always the answer, but it is inexpensive to check and occasionally transformative.

What a visit is actually like

We know children are often anxious, and that parents are often anxious about the anxiety.

Nothing hurts. Vision in young children is assessed with pictures, shapes, or by watching how they follow a target — reading letters is not required, and a child who cannot yet talk can still have their vision measured. Dilating drops sting briefly, like a bit of pool water, and then stop. Take-home advice: their near vision will be blurry and they will be light-sensitive for a few hours, so bring sunglasses, and expect them to be a bit put out on the drive home.

Come with any glasses they already have, a note of what you have observed and when it started, family history of eye problems, and any school screening results.

For referring physicians

We welcome direct referrals from pediatricians, family physicians, and school nurses for failed vision screenings, strabismus, amblyopia, nasolacrimal duct obstruction, and general pediatric eye concerns.