Cold causes child to lose eyesight

A sinus infection led to four-year-old Fatima Sheikh, from Pachora village near Jalgaon, losing complete eyesight in the left eye. Fatima had been suffering from a cold for one-and-a-half-months, followed by left orbital swelling. 
Treatment with neurorehabilitation at the Haji Ali-based SRCC Hospital for children, is now helping the child get better.

While she was getting treatment from a local doctor and later on in a government hospital, her health got worse. 
Ilyas Mukadum, uncle of Fatima, said, “She was given medicines by a local doctor but her health did not show any improvement. After 20 days, when her condition got worse, the doctor told us to shift her to any Mumbai-based government hospital. She was getting treatment at Nair Hospital for few weeks, but there was no improvement due to which we approached another hospital.”

She was admitted at a government hospital and had brain imaging done (CT and MRI), which showed that the infection from the left side of the nose had spread to her left eye and part of her brain. After a few weeks of treatment, she underwent an MRI once again, which showed that the infection was getting worse. She was not able to move the right side of her body and the infection was spreading to the right side of her eye.

Sheikh was later admitted to the ICU of Narayana Health - SRCC Children’s Hospital as she went into a coma.

Dr Amish Vora, a pediatric consultant at NH-SRCC hospital, said, “Since November, she underwent at least five surgeries at SRCC. She twice went into coma. During her course of treatment, she started talking and moving her right side, but her eyes' swelling was not reducing and the right eye's swelling was increasing. While she has lost eyesight in her left eye completely, in a few weeks we will be testing the vision of her right eye. She visits the hospital after every 15 days and gets treated with neurorehabilitation.”