Floaters & Flashes Treatment

Floaters are small specks or shapes that seem to be in front of your eye, but they are actually inside your eye. These specks and shapes can vary in size and severity. Sometimes they are small and in your peripheral vision, but sometimes they can prevent you from seeing clearly.

As you blink or move your eye to try to clear your eye of foreign objects, the floaters move with your vision or move away quickly. Floaters are actually clumps of cells or gel inside your vitreous (gel-like fluid inside your eye). Floaters commonly appear when looking at a light background with bright lights, such as a wall or the sky.

Floaters can appear as many different things, such as the following:

• Cobwebs
• Dots
• Threads
• Lines
• Dust
• Circles

Flashes, on the other hand, are bursts of light or white flashes in your eye. These bursts can be quick or long. They often appear with floaters, but they can also occur independently. Flashes are more commonly noticed when looking at a dark screen, low lit background, or in total darkness.

As you get older, the vitreous shrinks, which can cause cells or gel to clump together, causing shadows or floaters in your eye. This is the most common cause of floaters. Other causes include the following:

• Retinal Tear: If there is a tear, this can cause floaters. This is something that needs to be treated right away to avoid retinal detachment.
• Bleeding: The floaters in your eye could actually be clumps of blood. These floaters are most often associated with diabetes, but can also be caused by blocked blood vessels, hypertension, or eye injury.
• Inflammation: This is the least common cause of floaters, but it can happen. It’s important to get an eye exam to find the cause of inflammation.

Flashes are usually caused by vitreous collapse. This is when the vitreous begins to pull away from the retina, exposing a greater amount of light in the eye.

If you’re experiencing floaters or flashes, consult an eye doctor as soon as possible. At Spindel Eye Associates, our eye specialists perform an exam to make sure there isn’t an underlying cause.

Most floaters don’t require treatment. If you’re bleeding or have an eye injury, that will need to be treated. The doctor will help you to determine whether your floaters need to be addressed.

If the cause of the floaters is the vitreous shrinking, there is often nothing to be done. Eventually you will become used to the floaters, or they’ll move towards the bottom of the eye where they’re less noticeable.

Rarely, floaters get in the way of your vision. In this case, there are the following options:

• Surgery to remove the vitreous. A surgeon removes as much of the vitreous as possible to clear out the clumps of cells. They then replace the vitreous with a solution to help the eye keep its shape.
• Laser disrupts the floaters and can help break up these clumps. Some patients report that this helped their vision, while others did not notice a difference.

Most of the time, floaters are not a serious eye care problem. They are merely annoyances that you eventually get used to. But there is a chance that floaters are a sign of a more serious problem, so if you’re experiencing new symptoms, you should make an appointment with an eye doctor as soon as possible.