A British mother named Nadine Clair was shocked when she noticed a photographic glow in her daughter’s eye. When Clair took a flash photo of Violet, her daughter, with her mobile phone, she was shocked to see a reddish reflection in one eye and an unusual whitish glow in the other.

Violet was diagnosed with Coats disease. The pupil in one eye was clear and the iris had less color than the other eye. It is a rare and painful condition causing blindness due to abnormal growth of blood vessels behind the eye. She was completely blind in her left eye and requires emergency treatment to preserve the sight in her right eye.

Nadine Clair said, "Everyone alters and edits their photos now. It’s just so easy with the touch of a button; I too had edited out the glow before, because I just thought, ‘Oh, it’s like red-eye.’ But after I read online about it, I started taking and looking at photos I’d recently taken, and there it was — photo after photo, ‘the glow’ in my baby’s left eye.”

The cause of Coats disease is unknown, though there might be a genetic link. In an advanced stage, it might lead to retinal detachment and blindness and could even result in having to remove the eye altogether. The disease could also be a sign of eye cancer. Coats disease usually affects children under the age of 10 and is more prevalent in boys than in girls. It usually affects only one eye and not both but Violet’s case was unusual.

Dr. Franco Recchia, an ophthalmologist at Tennessee Retina in Nashville said, “Bilateral Coats disease is very rare.” Treatment for Coats disease includes extinguishing the abnormal blood vessels with laser therapy, freezing or fluid removal from behind the eye.

Dr. Franco Recchia said, “There are three main goals of treatment: Saving the eye, keeping the patient comfortable, and saving vision.” He has operated on even four months old babies affected with Coats disease, where he stated “We can achieve the first two virtually 100 percent of the time.”