Floaters – there’s something in my vision
The big three questions first about new floaters:
- Are floaters common? Yes
- Do they need to be taken seriously? Yes
- Can they be a sign of something that needs urgent treatment? Yes
Where do floaters come from?
The inside of most of the eyeball is filled up with a jelly-type substance called vitreous. Various things can happen to it to make parts of it just opaque enough to cast a shadow on the back of the eye. Its the shadow of these vitreous opacities that make up the variety of shapes and forms that we call floaters, and degree to which the opacities are fixed in position or mobile that determines how much we see them moving across our vision.
People experiencing floaters for the first time call them all sorts of things
- a dot
- a spot
- a bit of thread
- like a bit of a spider’s web
- like a piece of hair
The further back in the eye the opacity lies, the more distinct a shadow it will cast, and so it will be seen as blacker and more definite in shape. The further forward in the eye it lies, the less distinct will be its shadow, often appearing ghosty, faint, and its shape will be harder to describe.
Get floaters checked out
Floaters need to be checked out because they can be a symptom of retinal damage, and because it’s not just vitreous opacities that can cause spots or dots in the vision. The worst case is when they are a symptom of a retinal tear, which can lead to a retinal detachment, with loss of vision. Most of the time that’s not the case, but because it is sometimes, and because retinal tears need to be seen to straight away, you should always take new floaters (especially when accompanied by flashes of light or a feeling of restriction to your field of vision) seriously. Most of the examination of a person with new floaters is not about looking at the floaters in the eye (they’re not too hard to find), but looking at the health of the retina.
Then what? will they go away?
If there’s nothing more serious going on, then what? If a floater is fixed in position, you may notice it for quite a long time. Sometimes a floater will ’sink’ to the bottom of the eye (which in vision terms means it floats ‘up’ out of sight). Sometimes the opacity will gradually move further forwards in the eye, gradually getting more and more indistinct.
Watching your floaters
- Floaters are more easily noticed against bright uniform backgrounds – computer screens, walls, the sky. A bright blue sky is the best place to look at your floaters.
- Floaters, for some reason I’m not sure of, are more noticed when people are tired. Maybe it’s just easier to get distracted or irritaed by them when you’re tired.
- A fairly common position for a floater is about 10-15 degrees ‘out’ from your line of sight (ie opposite side to your nose). This is close to where you’re blind spot is, so a floater in this location can easily move just a little and suddenly become visible, or not visible.
- If it is fixed in position, that’s the sort of floater you can chase across your vision with your eyes but never catch up to.
- If it is mobile, it may at times drift across your line of sight. Sometimes a sudden movement will bring the floater back into view.
Why talk about how to view your floaters? Because once you’ve got a floater, the thing you have to keep on the lookout for is changes to that floater, or new floaters. So the more familiar you get with your ‘normal’ floaters, the better you’ll be able to notice if the situation changes, requiring re-examination.
