Miri's procedure

Miri has been a crybaby since the day she was born. It's not that she's overly emotional or fussy; she's actually a very mellow baby. Rather, she had blocked tear ducts. Sometimes people would comment on how sad our baby must be because of her watery eyes or tears running down her cheeks.

I brought up the issue with our pediatrician when Miri was just weeks old. He prescribed eye drops to get rid of the extra gunk her eyes were producing, and he told us to wait. Apparently, some plugged ducts clear up on their own.

When that didn't work, the pediatrician suggested that we massage the inside corners of her eyes to help them open up.

When that didn't work, I had to schedule an appointment with an ophthalmologist to see if we could take care of the problem before it became a bigger problem.

At our appointment yesterday, he explained that in some babies' tear ducts, the membranes that are supposed to open up and become valves don't. Miriam's problem was her upper valve. He told me that probing the tear duct is the next step in opening up the valves, and if I wanted him to, he could do it right then and there.

Since the big girls were happily watching a movie with my dad at his place and I'd have to shell out an extra co-pay to schedule another time to do the procedure, I gave the doctor the okay.

A lovely diagram I borrowed from webmd.com.

His assistant came in and strapped Miri to a papoose board and held her head while the doctor administered a numbing eye drop, then used a tool to open up the tear duct before inserting a thin, flexible wire into the canal. Of course, Miri was none too pleased. She screamed and cried like I haven't heard before. After the doctor flushed the canal with water, he had to repeat the steps with the other eye.

Once free from the board, Miri glared at the doctor and happily accepted her pacifier and some snuggles from me. The doctor sounded positive about the probing. He said that sometimes babies have a lot of bone around the upper valve, which leads to unsuccessful probing. He didn't feel that with Miri's eyes, however.

We're hopeful this took care of the problem. Already, Miriam's eyes are less watery, and yesterday she cried her first real tear; it came from the inside corner of her eye instead of welling up until it overflowed from the middle. The doctor said to give it two to three weeks to make sure that the valve stays open. If not, we'll have to go to the hospital and have tubes inserted to force the valves open. Blech. I'm hoping we can avoid that.

Miri the day after her tear duct probing. She's a tiny bit swollen and red under her eyes, but otherwise fine.