Eye Floaters
Diagnosing and Treating Floaters
Have you ever looked up at the bright blue sky and thought you saw a tiny bug fly across your vision? Or been reading a book with bright white pages and thought you had a hair drifting across your vision? If the answer is yes then you have probably seen a vitreous floater.
Everyone has a jelly deep inside their eyes called the vitreous. Sometimes pieces of the vitreous jelly can become denser than the surrounding jelly itself. Those little pieces of dense jelly float around in the vitreous and are called floaters. We see them when they pass in front of our pupil. Floaters can look like black dots, bugs, fine hairs or cobwebs. You can’t actually look at a floater. When you move your eye to try and look at them they jump or “float” out of the way. This is why they are called floaters.
Floaters in and of themselves are not dangerous and are usually more of an annoyance than anything else. Eventually, your brain will disregard them as useless information or they may settle down into the vitreous and out of your line of vision. But in some cases, floaters can be the indication of a tear that has occurred in the retina and that is something that can potentially become a problem.
As we get older, the vitreous, which is tightly adherent to the back wall of the retina, can begin to peel away from the retina. This is known as a PVD (posterior vitreous detachment). PVD’s are common. As the vitreous peels away from the retina it can apply tension against the retina and cause lightening type flashes in your vision. This is usually of no consequence. But sometimes, when the vitreous peels away from the retina it can tug too hard on the retina and create a small tear. The tear can bleed and blood cells can float into the vitreous that look like more prominent floaters or smoke. This occurrence has the potential for the retinal tear to worsen into a retinal detachment. Retinal detachments can result in needing surgery with serious, permanent loss of vision. It is for this reason that whenever you see a new or different floater, it is important to be seen by your ophthalmologist for a dilated examination right away. Only a dilated examination by an eye doctor can determine whether your floaters are just a normal changing of the vitreous or a tear that has occurred in the retina.
Floaters that are a normal changing of the vitreous again are usually something that will eventually subside. In some cases, if the floaters are bothersome enough that they are causing a constant, long-term disturbance in vision, a procedure to remove the vitreous called a vitrectomy can be performed. Laser of the vitreous floater is also an option. If floaters are found to be due to a tear that has occurred in the retina, then a laser treatment is used to heat seal and barricade around the tear to prevent retinal detachment.