A CHILD is at risk of blindness due to a rare condition that means her eyes won’t stop growing – and left her crying blood.
Little Aretria Bice, 21 months old, was born with big blue eyes, which friends, family and strangers alike found adorable.
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But when he was just six months old, in May 2023, one of Aretria’s baby blues turned “milky” and any light caused the little one to scream in pain.
After being rushed to hospital, she was diagnosed with a genetic abnormality, which caused extreme and increasing pressure on the optic nerve – causing her eyes to swell.
She underwent a series of urgent surgeries – the last two to insert a tube to drain excess fluid from her eyes.
But each one failed, and one even left her crying blood.
Now, Aretria is waiting to go under the knife for the sixth time.
Her worried parents, Louise, 35, and Connor Bice, 30, have been told that Aretria’s eyes will never get smaller once she grows up.
They are desperate for a solution as their daughter – who is already extremely short-sighted – will lose more vision as time goes on.
Louise, a housewife from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, said: “Aretria has extensive damage to her optic nerves – she can only see things closer than 8cm.
“She has had five surgeries to try to stabilize her optical pressure, which would prevent her vision from being damaged, but things continue to get worse.
“She had a tube put in her right eye in March to relieve the pressure, but it didn’t work and she even cried blood afterwards because the stitches came loose.
“She wears glasses 24 hours a day – she even has to wear them at night because if she wakes up and can’t see, she gets terrified.
“She has had so many surgeries and consultations that she is more afraid of hospitals and sobs just at the smell.
“His eyes are not going to get smaller, but we are hopeful that at some point things will stabilize so that his vision doesn’t get worse.
“As soon as she was diagnosed we knew this was going to be the end of her life – but we have no idea what happened. future It’s worth it to her.”
‘A CRUEL CONDITION’
Aretria was born on October 20, 2022, with her “bulging cartoon eyes,” as Louise and Connor affectionately refer to them.
They never considered that her eyes would be a concern until the baby was six months old and one of her eyes became cloudy.
Louise and Connor took her to hospital and doctors identified high pressure in her eyes due to fluid build-up, but were unable to find the cause.
After visiting several other hospitals to see specialists, Aretria’s condition was finally diagnosed – as bilateral congenital glaucoma.
Louise said: “Doctors said she was exposed to high eye pressure from birth because her fluid drainage system did not form properly in her eye when she was still in the womb.”
The specialists – who only treated a few cases of the disease – revealed that she would need a surgery called goniotomy to reduce the pressure.
There was red dripping from her eyes, I felt like she came out of one of those horror movies
Louise Bice
She first went under the knife in June 2023 at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, West Midlands, in a four-hour procedure.
Aretria’s grueling recovery process involved administering eye drops six times a day for a month and wearing eye protectors for a week.
But doctors revealed post-operatively that the surgery failed.
She underwent further unsuccessful surgeries in August 2023 and October 2023.
In March 2024, doctors said they would have to insert a tube to drain the fluid, but due to the sensitivity of her eyes, the stitches made her cry blood.
Louise said: “If she got excited or screamed she would burst and spill water.
“It was red running out of her eyes. I felt like she came out of one of those horror movies.”
The poor boy had to go under the knife for the fifth time to get the stitches out.
And yet, doctors said Aretria’s eye pressure continues to increase and her eyes continue to enlarge – so further surgery is on the cards.
SLOW DETERIORATION
Louise fears that if a solution to the fluid building up in her daughter’s eyes is not found soon, she will go blind.
Aretria’s prescription in both eyes is already -13, which makes her severely nearsighted, and the damage to her optic nerve continues to worsen.
She is also extremely sensitive to light and needs to wear sunglasses – even in low light.
Louise said: “I worry if her eyesight continues to deteriorate she won’t be able to attend mainstream school – that’s a whole different ball game.
Signs of congenital glaucoma
ABOUT five in every 100,000 children are born with glaucoma or develop it in childhood.
The most common glaucoma in infants and young children is called primary congenital glaucoma.
It occurs when the eye has not developed properly in the womb, causing problems draining fluids from the eye.
If fluid is not drained effectively, it builds up inside the eye and causes eye pressure to increase.
This puts stress on the optic nerve and can cause permanent damage to your vision.
Glaucomas of this type tend to run in families. A diagnosis of bilateral congenital glaucoma means that both eyes are affected.
Glaucoma is referred to as secondary if it is the result of another condition – such as Axenfeld-Rieger anomaly, which causes developmental problems in various parts of the eye, or Peter’s anomaly characterized by developments in the lens and cornea.
Symptoms of glaucoma in babies and children include:
- Big eyes – the outer layer of a child’s eye is much softer and more flexible than an adult’s, which means it can expand if pressure increases
- Light sensitivity – children with high eye pressure often become sensitive to light
- Cloudy eyes – as pressure increases, fluid is pushed into the cornea, making it waterlogged and cloudy. This cloudiness may disappear if the pressure is reduced, but it may take several months.
- Poor vision and twitchy eyes – if increased pressure in the eye has caused clouding of the cornea or pressure on the optic nerve head, vision may be worse than usual and children may develop jerky eye movements
- Strabismus – in some children, the eye with weaker vision may rotate in or out
- Teary eyed – if eye pressure is too high, it will cause glare from lights and swelling of the cornea, causing watery eyes
Source: Glaucoma UK
“It’s such a cruel condition – and yet I’ve never personally met another parent whose child has the same condition.
“When I tell people what she has, they’ve never heard of it.”
Louise wants to encourage other parents to look out for the signs and says she tries to raise awareness among everyone she meets.
She said: “Having these big, beautiful eyes isn’t always a good thing – if people compliment them now I feel really weird.
“Now, whenever my friends post photos of their babies on social media, I’m always looking into their eyes to see if they are normal size.
“I don’t want anyone else to go through what my daughter went through – the sooner people spot the signs, the better.”
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