wot: floaters (in the eye)

PeterWright wrote on 12/15/2011, 12:19 AM

I have a couple of these Leslie - they look like minute hair fragments, and they're not really a problem - the only time I see them is in bed in the morning, looking at the plain ceiling.
Solution - ? sleep in the Cistine Chapel.

Good luck with this - I think I must have neurally adapted and automatically look out "past them" most of the time.

Leee wrote on 12/15/2011, 12:46 AM

That's so weird, I was outside today and looked up at the cloudy sky and I really noticed all those floaters. I have on relatively dark one (like a speck of dust) then I got a whole bunch of lighter ones in various shapes and sizes. Probably about 10 in each eye. But I don't really notice them unless I'm looking at a plain bright background. I started noticing them about 10 years ago.

I haven't been to the eye doctor about them, I'm hoping if I ignore them, they'll just float away!

musicvid10 wrote on 12/15/2011, 1:06 AM

I had a couple of bad ones following surgery. Took nearly ten years to resolve completely.

Get your interocular pressure and blood sugar checked if they continue to bother.

Rory Cooper wrote on 12/15/2011, 1:18 AM

Mine don’t bother me much they come in handy during those boring meetings when someone pops a flip chart, the only way to keep my eyes open is to follow these little fellows around.

Geoff_Wood wrote on 12/15/2011, 2:04 AM

Mine are vaguely annoying in the morning when driving.

geoff

ushere wrote on 12/15/2011, 2:57 AM

wow! i'm happy to have such great company under the circumstances ;-( ;-)

paul_w wrote on 12/15/2011, 3:56 AM

I have a couple of small ones in my left eye, slightly annoying sometimes but other than that, these are quite common especially as you (and all of us) gets older :(
Like posted above, I see them mostly while looking at a white wall or screen. Shake your head a little and they move around slightly. Worrying at first but now i dont even think about it.

Paul.

PeterWright wrote on 12/15/2011, 3:59 AM

I find the ability, or lack of, to control their movement around my visual field to be a great lesson.

amendegw wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:35 AM

I've been troubled by floaters my entire life. Every once in a while (read decade) a new one will pop up. The only good news is, after a while your brain gets trained to ignore them.

Even more annoying than the floaters are silent migraines which I've had since grade school. Essentially, my sight is severely restricted. The only good news there is they only seem to happen once every 1-3 years, no pain (I've never had a real migraine), they only last about 45 minutes, and I've never had one while driving a car (I'd have to pull over).

...Jerry

Richard Jones wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:38 AM

I have a couple of these Leslie - they look like minute hair fragments, and they're not really a problem - the only time I see them is in bed in the morning, looking at the plain ceiling.

I'm exactly the same as Peter and have had floaters just loike this for many years. The Doctor's only concern was whether or not I had diabetes as this is often a symptom. He couldn't find diabetes and merely shrugged the problem off, saying that it is very common and usually comes as you grow older (not a happy thought - as though I need reminding about my age when I have this every morning when I have a roll call of my aches and pains!)

Good luck.

Richard

JJKizak wrote on 12/15/2011, 6:35 AM

Well they stick a needle in there and suck them out as my uncle said to me. And it works. Just make sure they get the correct eyeball.
JJK

amendegw wrote on 12/15/2011, 7:49 AM

"Well they stick a needle in there and suck them out as my uncle said to me. And it works. Just make sure they get the correct eyeball.Well, that's the poster child for the phrase, "the cure is worse than the disease".

...Jerry

Laurence wrote on 12/15/2011, 7:59 AM

They provide the visuals to the ringing in my ears.

jrazz wrote on 12/15/2011, 12:08 PM

I believe Jonathan Neal complained of this a while back as well in one of his threads... but as for me, I'm simply too young to deal with such matters :)

j razz

rraud wrote on 12/15/2011, 2:12 PM

Holiday cheers Jrazz, Just think of all the things you can look forward to. Floaters and Tinnitus. I got both too. Fortunately the Tinnitus can sometimes be prevented, earplugs, lower playback and onstage levels and such. Don't know of any preventive measures for Floaters.

ushere wrote on 12/15/2011, 2:38 PM

best of the season jrazz....

DON'T GROW OLD - there's a world of bother awaiting your body, even when the mind still thinks it's hitting the mid twenties ;-)

add to those above lower back pain (though with no 505 betasp rigs that might not be such a problem!), the nightly trips to the bathroom, oh, the arthritis, etc., etc.,

BTW - if you get 'flashing lights' with your floaters head to the doctor IMMEDIATELY, apparently the first sights of a detached retina.

jrazz wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:06 PM

Yeah, there are certain things I don't look forward to as I grow old. But there are others that I hope to live long enough to see no matter how much I am inconvenienced by the frailty of my body: namely, watching my children grow up in the ways that I am teaching them, seeing the affects of how I have impacted the world around me, playing with my grandchildren, and the record label allowing videographers to obtain sync licenses easily.

Plus I am really looking forward to growing old with my wife :)

j razz

Geoff_Wood wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:12 PM

You'd wanna make sure they didn't stick the needele right through the eye, and suck out ..... ;-0

geoff

Geoff_Wood wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:14 PM

Don't know of any preventive measures for Floaters.

Blindfold ?

geoff

PeterDuke wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:17 PM

I have had a small curly hair floater since childhood. I don't notice it now because of a much larger black blob floater that appeared a few years ago.

The frustrating things with floaters are that they lag behind eye movement, and you can't look straight at them because they scurry away ahead of where you look.

Most of the time I don't notice them.

larry-peter wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:29 PM

I was constantly bothered by floaters when I was younger (30s) and after I stopped drinking in the mid nineties I began noticing them less and less. Can't find one now. I also can't guarantee that the floaters ever really existed. Might have been hallucinations (I drank seriously) or could have been caused by the constant falling and head traumas. But in all seriousness, I haven't seen one for over a decade and I'm 52.

dxdy wrote on 12/15/2011, 4:33 PM

Floaters started being noticeable for me about five years ago, at age 59. My optometrist said they were debris from the roots of my eyelashes, and he told me to wash them daily with a very dilute solution of Johnson's Baby Shampoo. I found this helped.

PeterDuke wrote on 12/15/2011, 5:32 PM

"debris from the roots of my eyelashes"

I find this hard to believe.

In any case, you seem to suffer from gunk on the surface of the eyeballs if washing them helps. I also have skin problems including flakes of skin (similar to dandruff) getting into my eyes, and had also been advised to wash my eyes with dilute Johnson's baby shampoo (neutral pH, so no sting). Floaters are located in the gel (vitreous humour) within the eye.

jabloomf1230 wrote on 12/16/2011, 5:12 PM

I got one after being whacked in the head playing volleyball. The next day when I woke up I saw flashes out of my field of vision and a vague blurry spot in my field of vision in my right eye. I went immediately to the eye doctor, because I thought that I might have had a detached retina. He checked me for glaucoma, diabetes and basically said it was PVD (Post Vitreous Detachment). As he explained it, a small piece of the inner lining of the eye breaks away and floats around in the vitreous humor (which is like jelly). It is usually just a very tiny piece of protein, which may eventually settle out and disappear. Or, it could be permanent. The only treatment is to drain the vitreous humor and refill the eye with air or saline solution.

He also said that unless the floaters were really bad, no reputable ophthalmologist would ever do that surgery since the risks of blindness are high. He also said that there was a fad to use lasers to try to break up the floater, but that approach never panned out. Now they are looking at experimental drugs that might do the same. The doctor told me the same thing that someone else said. Eventually, the brain gets used to the difference between your two eyes and blocks out the floater.