Eye floaters-any reason to be concerned?

My mom was ready to go out and do some gardening today when she suddenly experienced what she described as threads and spots in her eyes. These were more severe than the usual flashes everyone gets now and then which only persist for a few minutes. After over an hour they have lessened by are still present. She called an opthamologist to have it checked out but is there any reason to be overly concerned? I realize that any online help is no substitute for a doctor visit but I wonder if anyone else has had a similar problem and how they dealt with it.

Some info on my mom which might be helpful:

She'll be 68 in January. She is moderately overweight (about 20 pounds), height 5'1", weight about 140. She has no cardiovascular disease, no diabetes, no major health problems at all (she had a series of major exams when she changed health plans recently), and isn't on any medication. She was diagnosed with minor mitrial valve prolapse but from everything I've read this is nothing to be concerned with. Her BP has been a little higher than normal for the last year, roughly 140/100. She took her BP a few times today and it was elevated a bit more-about 155/105. However, we had Chinese food Saturday and ate the leftovers yesterday so that probably accounts for the higher BP. My BP was elevated a bit also (120/70) compared to my normal baseline (about 105/60). I think the salt in the soy sauce probably accounts for this. Nothing else about my mother's health stands out right now that may have caused this.

My mom seems a bit worried about this. I know in severe cases it can indicate retinal tear. Is there any possibility it might involve something more severe than that?

If this came on very suddenly, then yes -- it could be indicative of a retinal detachment and she needs to see a retina specialist ASAP...like today. Most people normally experience a "curtain effect" where their vision gets much darker very quickly. That would be the retina detaching. If that is caught within a couple of hours of happening, they can sometimes reattach it in surgery.

I would probably get her to a retina doctor (NOT AN OPTHAMOLOGIST) right now. Retina specialists see this often and react with appropriate urgency. If you tell them this, they will often (always, in my experience) get you in immediately.

I know this because I have a friend with low vision. His brother had a retinal detachment and because of his low vision and family history, he is a prime candidate for a retinal detachment.

JM-99

I know in severe cases it can indicate retinal tear>>>>>>>>>>

or retinal detachment.

Impossible to diagnosis without an exam by your eye doctor. Do it.

An O.D.

Do not waste time at an opthamologist. Go to a retina specialist. If it is a retinal detachment, you do not have time to play games with an opthamologist...if something is wrong and they eventually get around to finding it (when it may be too late), they're just going to send her to a retina specialist anyway.

JM-99

Same as the other posters have said, sudden "spots" can be several things, a problem with the retina is one of those problems if you treat it inmediately it can be fixed.
You will lose nothing and it can be important so do go to a retina specialist right now, don't make an appointment, tell them it's an emergency.

Luigi

Absolutely. Go now. No matter the inconvenience or cost.

Personal knowledge. I lost vision in my left eye a couple of years ago to severe retina detachement. Three surgeries did not fix it.

In August this year I had a detachment in my right "good" eye. Got on it immediately - had surgery next day. Even tho surgery was successful and retina has reattached somewhat, I'll only have about 50% vision in my good eye.

My life has changed drastically in just a couple of months.

This is very, very serious stuff. Don't mess with it. Literally, minutes count.

I have several floaters like you described, but I just happened to notice them one day. They are consistent, and have been there for as long as I remember. Floaters like the ones I have aren't a concern.

If they came on suddenly though, that's indicative of a SERIOUS PROBLEM!! As other posters have said, get to a retina specialist as soon as you can, not when you can conveniently. More like NOW.

Good news. We found an opthamologist a block away from us and went as soon as he was able to take us. He found no evidence of retinal tear or vitreal detachment. He said he would have referred my mom to a retinal specialist immediately if that was the case. However, he made another appointment in two months time just to make sure, and said to call him immediately if there was any sudden change. He also recommended that my mom have her blood pressure, triglycerides, and blood sugar checked by an MD if she didn't do so recently. We're not entirely sure what caused this, but at least the worst case scenario has been ruled out so far.

It sounds like some others here weren't quite so lucky and I'll take their stories to serve as a warning not to ever sit on a problem like this if it happens again. A similar thing happened to my younger brother about this time last year but the doctors found nothing seriously wrong, and it cleared up within a few weeks.

Thanks everyone for the timely advice. :thumbsup: It may have prevented my mom from losing sight had the problem been more serious.

JTR, I'm glad to hear it's not anything worse at the moment.

BigIron, I'm truly sorry to hear of your vision problems. I always had a "bad" eye as it was turned in as a child and most vision was lost by the time it was surgically corrected. However I have had unexplained, uncorrectable vision loss in my once 20/20 good eye so that I am real nervous when I have to take the driver's vision test next year. The symptoms point to a retina/macular disorder but physically they say it looks fine. It's pretty hard not to feel sorry for myself despite the fact it does no good, so I hope your vision problems will improve.

Glad to hear she's ok, jtr. Good for you for reacting quickly and getting her to an opthamologist right away. I hope she continues to do ok.

Glad to hear you got the problem checked out immediately, and even more glad your mom didn't suffer from retinal detachment.

Thanks everyone for the sentiments. I'm of course very happy also that so far it seems to be nothing serious.

I think I may have found a possible cause for this. Does anyone remember this thread about lack of AC during the summer? See posts 47 and 48. Someone mentioned that my intolerance of heat might have been brought on by repeated minor heat strokes. I mentioned that this was unlikely for me since I usually don't go out when it's hot and when I do I usually stop sweating after a while once I get used to the heat. However, I thought that it might explain my mom's lack of tolerance for the heat since she has often spent hours gardening in the summer. I wonder if repeated small heat strokes combined with her recently slightly elevated blood pressure may have caused burst blood vessels in the eyes which in turn caused the floaters. Just a hypothesis but it certainly sounds plausible to me. Anyone else think so as well or have any other possible explanations? I'm trying to do a bit of detective work here so hopefully a simple lifestyle change or two can reduce the chances of this happening again.

Well, those who have been around here (Cafe) for a while, will remember my horror story. In 2002, my left eye virtually self-destructed. I was in a surgeon's office within 1 hour of my first symptom (flashing). He found nothing.

The symptoms progressed with time, and I visited other doctors. About 6 weeks later, one of them announced that I had a torn retina in my left eye. She immediately referred me to a retina surgeon. I was in surgury the next morning. I allowed that worthless piece of **** to work on me 4 times; all were terribly, terribly painful. He said I shouldn't be having that much pain, and he refused to give me an effective amount of pain reliever.

I "fired" him.

The next doctor couldn't even see the retina, because the eye was full of blood. It was bleeding from the coroidal layer under the retina. I let him jack around for about 3 times until I let him go.

After about 7 operations, what was left of my retina was covered with scar tissue. I went looking for a doctor that had the skill to peel the scar tissue away without destroying the retina. He was very good, but my eye continued to produce the scar tissue.

One of the things I learned during all this is that it can wreck your health. I also underwent kidney stone surgeries and a back surgery. Arthritis has become a real problem.

I have been on disability since the beginning of 2006, which caused me to lose my job. There is a lot more, but I have bored you all with this before.

God bless you all,

Chuck

I've had eye floaters since I was 14; I'm 60 now. They've never gone away, but they haven't got worse either. They're more obvious if you look at the bright sky or blank white walls, etc. I learned to ignore them.

It's good advice, though, to check it out and to make sure that fundamentals like BP, etc. are known. It doesn't hurt to take vitamins either.

jtr - good to hear that everything seems to be looking up for you mother - Retinal detachments can be very serious.

We've studied retinal detachments a lot here at school (I'm an optometry student) and there are definately some warning signs to watch out for. I'm sure that the ophthalmologist went through them, but make sure that she watches out for sudden flashes of light, "dark curtains", things that look like "spiders", lots of new floaters (like someone put pepper in the eye), etc.

As was mentioned above, we all have floaters, they'll be there for life. They may be alarming the first time that you notice them (easily seen by shifting the eyes back/forth/up/down and then gazing at a well lit white wall), but it's just a part of life. Actually, I've heard some doctors recommend that patients name their floaters (as a joke), because they'll be life-long companions...

It is possible to have "little strokes in the eye", but they wouldn't cause floaters. AKA transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) they're more likely to cause transient (~ 1 minute) blindness in that eye. These aren't the real thing (full blown stroke) but the same things cause them as strokes so they're highly indicative of risk for the patient. So most likely that's not the cause (different set of symptoms and she doesn't sound overly at risk for stroke)

As mentioned above - internet's a good place for advice, etc, but only the doctor can make a diagnosis (in person). I'll add to that that no one should mistake a student/intern for the real thing either (fully aware of my own limitations and lack of knowledge/experience! ), but you're doing great with a regular OD/MD checkup; retinal specialists are great as well, but they tend to work best on referals from other doctors. If your mother does have a retinal tear/detachment (and sometimes they happen even right after you've been told that they shouldn't) speed is important (obviously), but it should be more a case of hours than seconds. Yes, there is an immediate problem that needs to be dealt with, but most of the damage has already been done, the permanent part (blindness) is yet to take place. Ok, basically, a retinal detachment is when an inner layer of the retina (the part with blood vessels and stuff) detaches from the part with the photo-receptors. So to fix it, they now use lasers to "tack" it back down with micro-scars. The photorecepters are also getting some blood from behind them, so, yes, they'll die if its not treated, but it won't be in the next 5 minutes. Sorry if that's confusing, it isn't coming out as clearly as I'm picturing it in my mind... Hopefully everything turns out fine, and this is just a false alarm.

Best of luck!

-Brian

I've had floaters for a long time also, readily apparent when staring at the blue sky. One thing I've noticed is that working on the yard outside and getting a lot of salty sweat in the eyes will exascerbate them, or perhaps the bloodshot eyes and effects of the salty water just make the ones I have seem more noticable to me. It usually lasts for several days afterwards, with a little bit of blurriness also, then it goes away. Maybe that's what happened to your mom, since you mentioned the heat.

Stingray said:

I've had floaters for a long time also, readily apparent when staring at the blue sky. One thing I've noticed is that working on the yard outside and getting a lot of salty sweat in the eyes will exascerbate them, or perhaps the bloodshot eyes and effects of the salty water just make the ones I have seem more noticable to me. It usually lasts for several days afterwards, with a little bit of blurriness also, then it goes away. Maybe that's what happened to your mom, since you mentioned the heat.

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My mom had mentioned feeling faint sometimes after a long while in the yard when it was hot but the temps here have been in the 40s, 50s, and 60s for well over a month.

Meeshi_ma said:

As was mentioned above, we all have floaters, they'll be there for life. They may be alarming the first time that you notice them (easily seen by shifting the eyes back/forth/up/down and then gazing at a well lit white wall), but it's just a part of life. Actually, I've heard some doctors recommend that patients name their floaters (as a joke), because they'll be life-long companions...

Click to expand...

Yes, I just noticed mine but that's the first time I consciously looked for them. At best they looked like barely discernible nearly transparent objects. Nothing dark or otherwise noticeable under normal lighting.

The ophthamologist we saw did indeed go through the things you mentioned, asked my mom's medical history before examining her, and told her the typical warning signals to look for which would require immediate attention. Overall, he seemed quite competent. Better yet, since he's a block away my mom doesn't have to worry about transportation in case of something urgent. He also said that it will probably take a few months for the floaters to settle down but they should lessen over time. I also heard that your brain learns to compensate as well.

Just out of curiosity are full eye transplants a reality yet or close to becoming a reality? There are definitely some people who posted in this thread who would benefit greatly from it.

Transplants -- cornea, yes; but that's just the front part of the eye, no muscles or nerves involved.

Eyes do wear out like other senses over the years -- it's normal.

With hearing, you know the advice -- don't turn those earphones up to 11, don't put anything in your ear sharper than your elbow.

It's not as easy to say what precautions are smart, with vision over the lifetime.

Hey hank! Great to see that your mum is all right.


Just to caution you if her vision suddenly gets worse or if she suddenly gets headaches frequently, it may be the sign of a tumour pressing against the retina...