Irritated eye leads to startling diagnosis for Triangle tot
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Three-year-old Ollie is prone to allergies and eczema, so when his mom Brandy Mann noticed a small spot by his eye, she initially didn't think much of it. But when his daycare called and said he was rubbing his eye and it had started to swell, she took him to the doctor and got a startling diagnosis.
"'You need to go to the emergency room. It's periorbital cellulitis,'" Mann said she was told.
Periorbital cellulitis is an infection of the eyelid or skin around the eye. Symptoms include redness around and in the eye along with swelling of the eyelid and surrounding area.
"It's just from bacteria getting in their eye and often they'll get a bug bite or a scratch near their eye and the bacteria gets wiped into their eye," said Mann.
Ollie's case was caught early, but if left untreated, this type of infection can lead to loss of sight and nerve damage. Thankfully, Brandy wasn't aware of those rare cases until after Ollie had already recovered.
"After that, more people started coming out of the woodwork to tell me 'Yeah, my so-in-so had this they were in the hospital for 10 days. They were on IV antibiotics,'" said Mann.
Luckily for little Ollie, he was prescribed some antibiotics and bounced back almost immediately. But the episode taught Brandy a lesson to always err on the side of caution.
"Especially with eyes. That's what I've learned from this. If something seems off with an eye, just immediately go to the doctor," she said.
Brandy has another son, and she says, believe-it-or-not, this isn't the first strange diagnosis one of her kids has received. For more on her adventures in parenting click here for a link to her blog.
