I know a lot of babies have blocked tear ducts at the start of life...but do any of you have a child who had it past six months? Katie is almost six months old and still has blocked tear ducts in both eyes.

My friends baby had it all the way past one. Her pedi told her that if it didn't fix itself by one year of age, they could do a procedure to help it. It didn't go away so they did the procedure at 13 months. They took a medal stick type thing and went in and "unclogged" it. After a couple of days of bleeding a bit she was all better. I think it sounds pretty bad but my friend said it wasn't *that* bad! HTH :)

Yeah, Katie's old ped said that at six months if she still had blocked tear ducts she would refer Katie to get that procedure done...but six months seems way early to do that...I'm thinking her new doctor won't be so aggressive. :dunno:

Bleeding, huh? Yikes!

Bleeding? oh my!

Aidan's cleared up on his own...I dont remember when. Though I do remember when I worked in daycare there was a little girl whose were blocked and her mom said the same thing...that the dr wouldnt do anything till she was 1. Luckily, they clearaed up before then.

My son Cody had the procedure done at 7 months. They had to put him under general anestesia (sp!) for it, but the surgery literally lasted less than ten minutes. Basically the "bleeding" was just a lot of bloody goop, and I'll admit, it was nasty looking, but after about 6 hours it lessened and by the next day, it was gone. The surgery was SO much harder on us than him, and now his poor little eyes aren't matted shut anymore. If you have any questions at all, let me know! Kwhite535@yahoo.com

BTW, I thought that 7 months was a bit young, but Cody's pediatrician said if it didn't go away by 6 months, it'd still be blocked at a year.

Courtney is 8 months old, and her left eye is still really bad. My ped said to wait unitl a year, but I couldn['t take it any more, so I took her to a pediatric opthmologist. They said waiting until a year is not good advice. Courntey's had gotten so bad that it was infected. He put her on a steroid drop for 2 weeks, and they were so much better. But they are still blocked, so now she is on an antibiotic. I have to massage it twice a day, and we are hoping it will clear. We go back to the opthmologist on 6/7, and I am curious to see what he says. I don't know how long he will wait to probe her.

Jared ducts still get blocked occasionally (he's 9 months...) but I have to say it's much better than it was and seems to be getting less "gunked" over time.

My dr. also said to wait 1 year before having the procedure done.