Thank you so much for blogging about this random topic. I have seen these things for a long time now but never really knew how to look it up. Wow, you just made my day except now i gotta obsess on whether im gonna go blind or not.

And now I gotta figure out what it means when I see very little spherical particles.. almost like atoms floating around. Almost like in the first willy wonka when they send the kid through the TV set - just very small.

My wife as a retinal detachment. She had laser surgery to reattach it. It affected her peripheral vision a bit. It was noticeable at first but not any more. The doctor said she was in danger of going blind in that eye if she hadn't gotten treatment when she did.

We are now very careful around her face. She would likely need surgery again if she were to accidentally get hit in the face with a ball or something like that.

Wow, Hawaii - doesn't sound like fun at all.

MattC, glad I can help.

Your brother Adam has the same problem

Daaad!

Now everyone knows!!

I'd just like to add to this discussion if that's ok, being somewhat of an expert on the subject. I never used to know what floaters were, or ever think about them. Then just a couple of weeks after my 27th birthday, very suddenly and for no particular reason, I got A LOT of them. These things have really ruined my quality of life. True, they don't hurt and they won't kill you. But they can really mess with your mind and make you very depressed. I can see the largest of my floaters in almost every kind of light, including indoors at night! I can even see it through my eye lids. It's impossible to escape, in that, I can never look away from it, because it follows the movement of my eyes! Going out into bright daylight is like immersing myself in a snowglobe of microscopic debris resembling tadpoles, cobwebs and fish eggs. It's truly disturbing; a horrible reality to be faced with.

Can they be treated? The "official" answer is no, but the truth is yes. Eye floaters can be treated in 3 ways:

1) You wait for the gel inside your eyes to naturally liquify further in the hope that your floaters will move away from your retina, with the freedom to sink lower down to the bottom of your eye.

2) You get laser treatment, whereby a surgeon attempts to break up and obliterate your floaters by firing shots at them with a laser beam.

3) You get a Floater Only Vitrectomy (FOV), a major operation whereby most of the gel (vitreous humour) is sucked out of your eyes. This treatment REALLY does get rid of the floaters, but at the risk of introducing alternative eye problems.

I have visited dozens of web sites about floaters. very few have even one picture of a floater. just talk talk talk. I want to see some pictures to see if what I have is a normal floater or something that needs to be removed.
there are two things that are similar in shape; like the fram of a kite. They are dark black and not tranparent like other stringy floaters

There's a doctor in Falls Church, Virginia, who treats floaters with laser. His success rate with this kind of treatment is 92% and basically there are no risks associated with the procedure. Most insurance companies will authorize this procedure. Mine doesn't even require authorization. It's worth checking his website out. I learned about him by searching the web. I came across an article on USA Today, I believe, about him. His name is John Karichhoff and his website is http://www.eyefloaters.com/. I've done some research on him and only found good review.

I have a lot of experience with floaters, being an eye doctor.

As mentioned here, floaters are caused by microscopic debris inside the eye that casts shadows on the the retina ... which are seen as little specks in your vision.

There is no good treatment for these things, as all of the treatments are much riskier then leaving them alone. A vitrectomy (surgery to remove the jelly in the back part of your eye) puts you at risk for sight-threatening infection and retinal detachment. Laser therapy to "explode" the particals is risky as well, as putting unneeded engery into the eye creates shockwaves and heat into the eye that can contract the vitreous jelly and put you at risk for retinal detachment.

Here's an interesting video on what these floaters look like: floater video.

As annoying as those floaters are, its better just to leave them. They will fade with time as they float forward and the shadow they cast become lest distinct.

I wrote some comments here on 12/18/2007 before I was treated with laser for eye floaters. On January 11, 2008, I had my left eye treated for floaters. After checking my eye, Dr. Karickhoff determined that my case was a little bit difficult to treat because my floate was way in the back. He told me that treatment in my particular case was 0 to 80% success rate and that I would run the risk of having smaller more noticeable floaters, if they went further back. I decided to go with the procedure anyway, since the big floater I had was very distractive, especially when reading and using the computer. It's been less than a month now since I had the procedure done and I would rate the success of the procedure to be 90%. I'm very happy with the results. He wasn't able to completely eliminate my floater, but it's become far less noticeable. As I'm tying this note, for example, I don't see any floaters on the screen. When I'm reading, I don't see any floaters. Usually in the evenings and most of the day, I don't see any floaters anymore. The only times I see some floaters now are when I look at a very bright light or on a very sunny day, but the floaters are still far less noticeable than the big one I had before and I can easily ignore them. Sunglasses make them even less noticeable and even invisible.

I'm very happy with the results of the procedure. As I was waiting in the waiting room of Dr. Karichhoff's office for my first visit (I live 30 minutes from his office), I noticed that his patients are people who have been seeing him for many years. I consider this treatment a blessing and I hope others will benefit from this procedure as well.

i have like four floater in my left eye the are transparent but my doctor said is not sirious and he said that my floaters will disappear but i don´t know how many months it need to be gone.

Dear Mark,

Did you have any other symptoms, i.e. flashes, ghosting, visual snow, etc. with your floaters? Was there any effect to these symptoms after the laser treatment from Dr.John?

FYI,

I have had vitreous floaters for about the past 3 years. After reading about YAG laser and vitrectomy treaments I decided to go see Dr. X in Fort Myers, FL. It turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. I arrived in Dr. X's office on a Monday. I had a complete eye exam, well if that what you call it with this practice?? Well, I knew that I was in trouble when the eye technician could not even get a pressure reading on my left eye. She tried for about 30 minutes and finally had to get another tech to get my eye pressure. I spoke to Dr. X and we discussed my floater issues and he explained that the cost was $1600.00 per eye. After dilating my pupils and determining that the floaters were far more prominent in my left eye, we decided to move forward with treating the left eye. After paying the $1600.00 I proceeded to have the YAG laser treatment. During and right after the treament the patient is not able to notice any floaters because of the pupil dilation. However, the following day I noticed that my floaters were still there and had just been moved around.

I had 2 more treatments of my left eye on Tuesday and Wednesday and again after the pupils returned to normal, I could see that the floaters were still there. What made it even worse is that now my brain has to get adjusted to the new location of the floaters. Sucks!! I am going to see an retinal specialist on Monday to check for PVD. It is quite possible that this Quack Doctor damage my left far worse that it was before the laser treatment. The only smart thing I did during my visit was I didn't let this stupid Phuk treat my right eye. All, please take my advice and don't get the YAG laser treatment for floaters. There were 4 other patients there during my visit and 3 out of 4 were unsuccessful in the treatment of their floaters. DON'T GO SEE DR. X IN FT. MEYERS. IT'S A SCAM... Most unprofessional practice I have ever in my entire life..

Dear Joey,
Thanks for providing the above information. I also belive that this treatment is not as effective as people think. However, I want to know that was there any effect on your symptoms after the treatment?
May I know what type pf visual symptoms you have?

Dear Joey,
I went to see this Dr in Fort Myers about a month ago, but didn't get the laser yet ,I am concerned about the efectiveness of this treatment now. Did the laser made your floaters worst or they remained the same?

I have that problem, but I am not sure whether or not it's caused by floaters.
When I look in a blue sky or an opaque colour I tend to literally visualise millions of small coloured dots, there are literally millions of them moving around randomly very life like. This has been going on for as long as I have memory.

In early June I had a minor bicycle accident and hit my head. This caused a posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) which created two large floaters in my right eye. One floater was a big black ring, known as a weiss ring. The second floater was a rather large "cobweb". I went to see Dr. K in Viginia to see if he could use the laser on my floaters. He said the cobweb was too close to the lens, but he could do the weiss ring. He completely removed the ring from my eye. So for certain types of floaters located in the right place it can help.