Living With Eye Floaters

PLEASE NOTE: This is a personal account, some of this information may slightly differ for people who suffer from the same situation I do.

Was that a bug flying around my face?

Did I just see someone move?

Ugh, white screens are the worst

These are just some of the many thoughts that I, someone who lives with eye floaters has. Sometimes when relaxing on my computer, I will see something fly around my face and believe it is a bug, but then I don’t see anything there. “Must’ve been an eye floater”. Another situation I might experience is I am sitting in an extremely dark room and see an eye floater move in the corner of my eye, believing I just saw movement in my peripheral vision. But as it turns out, it’s just a floater as always. It has spooked me before.

The image above is an accurate representation of what they look like. They come in various shapes and sizes, and the above picture is similar to what I have personally experienced. While eye floaters are not rare, with around 30% of the population having them, I have seen some people falsely believe that this is something only the elderly get. I had these same beliefs, until I started noticing them in my vision around the age of 17. It is totally possible for teenagers to develop eye floaters, since nearsightedness heavily increases your chances. While mine are not debilitating, they were extremely obnoxious to deal with at first and were stressing me out, but my brain has fortunately adjusted to their presence and has gotten better at ignoring them. While they do occasionally bother me still, I have learned to deal with the fact that it is something I will likely have to deal with for the rest of my life.

Something I should clear up is that while the picture above is an accurate representation of what they can look like, this is not always what I am seeing. When looking at bright things such as a white wall or screen, floaters are much more obvious and irritable. Darker lighting in rooms, dimmer screens, and darker colors make them harder for me to notice since my floaters are black. They are also easier to notice with my glasses off due to my terribly blurred, near-sighted vision. Since my vision is so out of focus and blurred, it makes it easier for my eyes to focus on the floaters and notice them when my glasses are removed. A specific, recent incident I can recall is walking through a snowy field and taking my glasses off, only to suddenly notice a massive army of floaters in my vision. I hadn’t noticed them previously since my brain has gotten so good at ignoring them, but taking off my glasses made me remember just how many of them are always there in my eyes.

Due to floaters being located in a specific area in your eye, if you try to look at them, they dart away from your vision since you just moved your eye, and therefore your floaters’ position in the process. Mayo Clinic describes them well, saying “Eye floaters are spots in your vision. They may look to you like black or gray specks, strings, or cobwebs that drift about when you move your eyes and appear to dart away when you try to look at them directly”. Keep in mind that eye floaters do not move, they remain still and are simply shadows cast onto your vision. The only reason why they appear to move is because you yourself have moved your eye. Think of it like this: if someone has a scar on their arm, the scar moves with the arm since it is a part of it, it does not float in the air after you move your arm. Fortunately, since I do not have a heavy concentration of floaters in the center of my eyesight, I do not have to deal with floaters heavily obstructing my vision, but it is possible that more could develop in my eyesight and it could continue to worsen.

Risk Factors (taken straight off of Mayo Clinic):

• Age over 50
• Nearsightedness
• Eye trauma
• Complications from cataract surgery
• Diabetic retinopathy
• Eye inflammation

While it can be annoying at times, it is something I have learned to live with. The blue sky may be filled with spots for me now, but it still looks perfectly beautiful if you ask me.

More Detailed Information on Eye Floaters:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/eye-floaters/symptoms-causes/syc-20372346

http://www.floater-lft.com/eye-floaters/about-eye-floaters/

Please contact an eye specialist immediately if you notice flashes in your vision or peripheral vision loss while experiencing eye floaters. This means that you likely have a retinal tear, a sight-threatening condition.