--- title: Facebook Diagnosed Child's Coat's Disease Rare Eye Disorder description: One reason haters should stop complaining about baby Facebook posts canonical: https://time.com/48216/facebook-picture-diagnoses-child-disease/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-03T15:46:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:27.761Z og:title: How a Facebook Post Led to the Diagnosis of a 3 Year Old's Rare Disease og:description: One reason haters should stop complaining about baby Facebook posts og:url: https://time.com/48216/facebook-picture-diagnoses-child-disease/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How a Facebook Post Led to the Diagnosis of a 3 Year Old's Rare Disease twitter:description: One reason haters should stop complaining about baby Facebook posts twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # How Posting A Facebook Picture Saved a 3 Year Old's Sight by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Apr 3, 2014 3:46 PM UTC by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Apr 3, 2014 3:46 PM UTC Turns out posting Facebook pictures can have more tangible benefits than temporarily boosting your self-esteem. Tara Taylor [posted](http://wreg.com/2014/03/31/childs-picture-on-facebook-leads-to-diagnosis-of-rare-eye-conditioncebo/) a photo of her daughter Rylee on Facebook after the 3-year-old Pinterest-user-to-be got creative with hair ribbons, and she got something more useful than some likes. Taylor told a [Memphis CBS affiliate](http://wreg.com/2014/03/31/childs-picture-on-facebook-leads-to-diagnosis-of-rare-eye-conditioncebo/) that her friends commented, “Hey, I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s probably the lighting, but your daughter’s eye is glowing and you might want to have it checked out because it’s a sign there could be an issue with her eye.” It turned out that her daughter had [Coat’s disease](http://www.coatsdisease.org/index.html), which can cause blindness in one eye. The condition was caught before vision loss had begun, saving her sight. Diagnosis via Facebook sounds outlandish, but this isn’t the first time conditions have been caught via crowdsourcing. [Michelle Freeman caught her daughter’s eye cancer](http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/16/facebook-creeping-saves-a-childs-life/) after a Facebook stalking friend — who happened to be a nurse — flagged something concerning in a photo. While Freeman’s daughter’s eyes should have glinted red in a picture, they were showing up white, which could be a sign of cancer. When [_Slate_ writer Deborah Copaken posted her sick son’s symptoms in a Facebook status](http://www.slate.com/articles/double%5Fx/doublex/2011/07/how%5Ffacebook%5Fsaved%5Fmy%5Fsons%5Flife.html), physician friends made a life-saving diagnosis that her doctors had missed. Post away, parents. Post away. ([h/t: WREG](http://wreg.com/2014/03/31/childs-picture-on-facebook-leads-to-diagnosis-of-rare-eye-conditioncebo/)) Facebook Diagnosed Child's Coat's Disease Rare Eye Disorder ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/48216/facebook-picture-diagnoses-child-disease/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/48216/facebook-picture-diagnoses-child-disease/"},"headline":"How Posting A Facebook Picture Saved a 3 Year Old's Sight","datePublished":"2014-04-03T15:46:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:27.761Z","description":"One reason haters should stop complaining about baby Facebook posts","url":"https://time.com/48216/facebook-picture-diagnoses-child-disease/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","facebook","diagnosis","health","Good News"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/48216/facebook-picture-diagnoses-child-disease/","name":"How Posting A Facebook Picture Saved a 3 Year Old's Sight"}}]}] ```