The Truth About Dannielynn’s "Possible Blindness"
I had told you about a story from the television show ET on whether or not Dannielynn, daughter of Larry Birkhead and the late Anna Nicole Smith, was possibly going blind, well turns out she’s not.
Little Dannielynn has strabismus (a commenter on my previous post said this was most likely the cause) – it’s a vision condition in which a person cannot align both eyes simunltaneously under normal conditions. One or both of the eyes may turn in, out, up or down. An eye patch is often used to cover the “good” eye to help strenghten the weaker eye.
Larry told Mark Steines from ET, “She has strabismus, which is a turning in of one of her eyes, and it’s something that we’ve been looknig out for a while. I’ve been taking her to the doctors and … Anna had taken Dannielynn to the doctor [in the Bahamas] to see about it when she was just a few months old.”
He continues, “I got her a little pirate doll to show her that people wear patches, and it’s okay, and daddy wears a patch if he has to, to show her it’s okay. I’ve been really aggressive with the patch as much as I can be. At first she was really open to it and it didn’t really bother her. Now, she’s gotten a little smart, because she can pull it off, so it’s a little bit harder for me to patch her.”
If the eyepatch doesn’t work, or if using medicated drops in her eyes (to dilate the pupil) fails, then Dannielynn may require surgery.
Birkhead says, “I’m going to do everything to make sure that it’s corrected, but having lost Anna and [her son] Daniel and my dad – my dad just came out of a simple surgery and he died – it’s just tough for me to think about sugeries with [Dannielynn].”
There were rumors that Dannielynn’s eye condition was caused by methadone usage by Anna Nicole and Larry is adamant that that is not the case.
“All of the opinions that I had [from doctors], every one of them said that it’s very, very unlikely, because no one knows one-hundred percent what causes [strabismus], but I point-blank ask every single doctor, ‘Could any medications that Anna was on have caused this?’ and they said that it’s more likely that a genetic reason could have caused it.”
I think Larry is definately someone who wants media attention at times BUT I also think he’s taking care of Dannielynn and her eye condition.
Oh good chyna823, I’m glad things worked out for your kids! Hopefully little Dannielynn is okay!
As a parent of 2 kids with strabismus, I’m glad to hear he’s being vigilant about the patches. That’s key. One of my kids has also had the surgery, and I was very worried ahead of time, but it turned out to not be that big of a deal, and the recovery is really quick.