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Eye Floaters: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment

Eye floaters appear as small spots that drift through your field of vision. They may stand out when you look at something bright, like white paper or a blue sky. They might annoy you, but they shouldn’t interfere with your sight.

If you have a large floater, it can cast a slight shadow over your vision. But this tends to happen only in certain types of light.

You can learn to live with floaters and ignore them. You may notice them less as time passes. Only rarely do they get bad enough to require treatment.
What Are the Symptoms?

Floaters earn their name by moving around in your eye. They tend to dart away when you try to focus on them.

They come in many different shapes:

Black or gray dots
Squiggly lines
Threadlike strands, which can be knobby and almost see-through
Cobwebs
Rings

Once you get them, they usually don’t go away. But you usually notice them less over time.
What Causes Them?

Most floaters are small flecks of a protein called collagen. They’re part of a gel-like substance in the back of your eye called the vitreous.

As you age, the protein fibers that make up the vitreous shrink down to little shreds that clump together. The shadows they cast on your retina are floaters. If you see a flash, it’s because the vitreous has pulled away from the retina. If that happens, see your eye doctor ASAP.

These changes can happen at any age, but usually occur between 50 and 75. You’re more likely to have them if you’re nearsighted or have had cataract surgery.

It’s rare, but floaters can also result from:

Eye disease
Eye injury
Diabetic retinopathy
Crystal-like deposits that form in the vitreous
Eye tumors

Serious eye disorders associated with floaters include:

Detached retina
Torn retina
Bleeding in your vitreous
Inflamed vitreous or retina caused by infections or an autoimmune condition
Eye tumors

Something that might resemble a floater is the visual aura that can come with a migraine headache. It could look like what you see when you put your eye to a kaleidoscope. It might even move. It’s different from the floaters and flashbulb type “flashes” that come with other eye problems. This usually lasts a few minutes and may involve the vision in both eyes. But then it completely resolves unless you have another episode.



When to See the Doctor

If you only have a few eye floaters that don't change over time, don’t sweat it.

Go to the doctor ASAP if you notice:

A sudden increase in the number of floaters
Flashes of light
A loss of side vision
Changes that come on quickly and get worse over time
Floaters after eye surgery or eye trauma
Eye pain

Choose a doctor who has experience with retina problems. If you don’t get help right away, you could lose your sight.
How Are Floaters Treated?

Benign ones almost never require medical treatment.

If they annoy you, try to get them out of your field of vision. Move your eyes -- this shifts the fluid around. Look up and down, that usually works better than side to side.

If you have so many that they block your vision, your eye doctor may suggest surgery called a vitrectomy. He’ll remove the vitreous and replace it with a salt solution.

You might have complications like:

Detached retina
Torn retina
Cataracts

The risk is low, but if these problems happen, they can permanently damage your vision.

http://www.webmd.com/eye-health/benign-eye-floaters#1

How are floaters treated?

For people who have floaters that are simply annoying, no treatment is recommended.

On rare occasions, floaters can be so dense and numerous that they significantly affect vision. In these cases, a vitrectomy, a surgical procedure that removes floaters from the vitreous, may be needed.

A vitrectomy removes the vitreous gel, along with its floating debris, from the eye. The vitreous is replaced with a salt solution. Because the vitreous is mostly water, you will not notice any change between the salt solution and the original vitreous.

This operation carries significant risks to sight because of possible complications, which include retinal detachment, retinal tears, and cataract. Most eye surgeons are reluctant to recommend this surgery unless the floaters seriously interfere with vision.


Indiana Dr

Persistent vitreous floaters,
macular hole, macular pucker,
retinal detachment, & diabetic retinopathy

*Note--During the fluorescein angiography test, a dye is injected into a vein in your arm. Our photographer then takes rapid sequence photographs of the retina. The dye shows the blood vessels in the retina in clear detail. This lets us identify abnormal or damaged blood vessels. There are detailed web links on this site that describe this and other common tests that may be performed during your visit.


https://www.vitreousdoctor.com/?gclid=CO7M_7XoptUCFZ21wAodzTQKbA
https://nei.nih.gov/health/floaters/floaters