Eye Floaters and Flashes

Have you ever felt spots, specks or cobwebs moving around aimlessly in your line of vision? Well, these squiggly lines and wispy threads in your vision are known as eye floaters and flashes. These are tiny clumps of gel in the vitreous, the clear jelly-like fluid that fills the back chamber in your eye. This vitreous detachment is often accompanied by photopsia or light flashes. Most people may have seen floaters in the eye, especially when looking at a piece of paper or the blue sky.

What Are The Causes?

The human eyeball is made up of an inner part, which contains a clear material called the vitreous. This jelly like material made up of proteins in our eye is responsible for the round shape of the eye. However, as we start aging, the vitreous starts shrinking and thickening. This causes the microscopic fibers attached to the retina and lining the inner part of the eye to pull away from the interior surface of the eye. These fibers in turn, tend to clump together and form debris or particles, which float around within the vitreous cavity of the eye. So each time light rays enter the eye and hit the particles, a shadow is created on the retina, which is perceived as spots in front of the eye along with crescent shaped flashes.

Aging
The primary cause of eye floaters and flashes is aging and the degeneration of the vitreous due to it. This causes the thickening of the collagen fibers within the vitreous, thus, resulting in eye floaters. Also called posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) or posterior vitreous separation, eye floaters due to aging may afflict any person who is over 50 or who are nearsighted.

Other Causes
In addition to the retinal detachments caused by aging, floaters in the eye can also be the direct result of infections or inflammation of the eye. In addition to this any trauma to the eye, central vein occlusion and blood diseases or diabetic retinopathy causes vitreous hemorrhage, which can cause eye floaters. Sometimes eye surgeries such as the cataract surgery or YAG laser eye surgery can cause the flashes and the appearance of the specks in your line of vision. In addition to this, other causes of floaters in the eye include Cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, tumors in the eye, toxoplasmosis of the eye and diseases like tuberculosis, sarcoidosis, migraines and syphilis.

What are The Symptoms?

A sudden onset of eye floaters may take on different forms. While some look like small dots, dark, transparent or knobby specs, veils, and transparent strings or cobweb like materials that float within your field of vision. These are painless and often subside without any intervention. In addition to this people may also observe arc shaped or "o" shaped flashes of light, especially, when you have migraine. While normal symptoms of eye floaters are not something that we need to worry about, a loss of the central or field of vision may warrant some treatment measures.

Eye Floaters and Flashes Treatment

Normal cases of eye floaters do not require a treatment. However, in certain cases the floaters can be so dense and numerous that they significantly affect the vision. In these cases, a surgical procedure known as vitrectomy may be needed to remove the floaters from obstructing the field of vision. However, it is important to keep in mind that the surgery is prone to complications, such as retinal detachment, cataract and incomplete removal of floaters. Retinal tears can be corrected with laser eye surgery. Other treatment measures include injection of drugs into the eye, topical eye drops and oral medications.

If you are riddled with problems of densely packed eye floaters and flashes that hinder your field of vision then it is best to consult an ophthalmologist or an optometrist as soon as possible.