Health Education

Most people's floaters are actually just normal physiological phenomenon, but stories are circulating that some people with floaters go blind following retinal detachment! So, there are some medical knowledge you should know about floaters.

There are dark shadows flying around in front of me, and I can't hit or catch them. What should I do? It is believed that every ophthalmologist often encounters such problems from patients at outpatient clinics. Indeed, floaters are a real headache for patients and physicians.

In fact, the so-called "floaters" is just a patient's self-conscious symptoms, that is, in the field of vision, there are black dots or lines that look like mosquitoes or flies, or even spidery dark shadows floating in front of their eyes.

The vitreous body is a transparent, egg-white-like, semi-fluid filling tissue that lies in back of the lens and in front of the retina, and accounts for about three quarters of the total volume of the eye. If the proteinogen contained is condensed into opaque dots or lines floating around due to liquefaction caused by aging, myopia, trauma, or inflammation in the eye, or if blood, calcium salts, inflamed cells, or even parasites are floating in the vitreous body, these conditions can cause what is known clinically as floaters.

Some patients are often worried and ask, "Am I going blind?" "In fact, most floaters don't affect vision, and they are just making a mountain out of a molehill. But for the following phenomena, we need to be particularly vigilant and see qualified ophthalmologists for detailed examination in time:

• Accompanied by severe visual impairment, metamorphopsia or distorted vision.
• Accompanied by redness, pain, photophobia and excessive tear secretion in the eyes.
• Accompanied by high myopia or diabetes, hypertension and other systemic diseases.
• Accompanied by fixed visual field defects or curtain-like dark shadows.
• Accompanied by flicker phosphene (i.e. the sensation of a light spot, halo, flash or luminous object when the eyes are closed or when the eyeballs are moving).
• A sudden and rapid mass of black spots.

In short, while most floaters are harmless symptoms, a few are a precursor to serious eye diseases, such as retinal detachment or vitreous hemorrhage, and should not be neglected.