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Comment by arrowleaf | Hacker News Reader

Floaters have many causes. An early sign of retinal detachment will be floaters until it progresses closer to the macular hole, at which point the symptoms will be more of a curtain being drawn across your vision.

I was able to catch a retinal tear that had a very high chance of proceeding to a retinal detachment (horsehoe tear with sub-retinal fluid) by getting some new floaters checked out.

Floaters are commonly caused by a (mostly) benign aging phenomenon called posterior vitreous detachment, where the vitriol gel liquefies as a person ages.

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I've had floaters (can clearly see them in the sky) since childhood. I've considered laser surgery to get rid of them, but never gotten around to it.

Sometimes it worries me, but the condition is "stable".

I'd be interested to know if anyone here didn't have floaters

Same here. I've had the same floaters as long as I can remember.

A friend of mine saw a floater for the first time and was freaking out. This confused me since, by then (and we're the same age), I was used to seeing the world through an aquarium of floaters. 8D

Ditto. I remember my first and only floater which manifested in a somewhat dark library. I found myself batting away at what appeared to be a rather large and persistent butterfly. Took awhile to calm down! I still haven't become accustomed to it despite my opthalmologist's assurances that my "eyes will accomodate" to it" (BS I think).

No floaters until I was in my 50s.

In response to top of thread, retinal detachment does usually start with new floaters.

My first floater came with an unusually timed cluster headache ( like a migraine but usually with predictable timing ) so I had accompanying visual auras. Because I didn’t recognize it as a cluster I described it to the on call eye doc as new floaters and sparkles. That got me an emergency trip to optical ER and a slightly disappointed surgeon.

Mid-30s, none yet that I've noticed.

Reading this thread is like thinking about breathing, now I'm seeing them all again.

None that I can see at 40 here. I think I'd freak out if I saw something like that, so it's good to know I'd actually need to go get it checked out.

I haven't had any yet, age 52.

I thought I had them when I was young, but I learned they were just a form of phosphenes.

Same here (until I started getting new ones)! The best thing to do is to get a dilated fundus exam by someone who really knows retinas to rule out anything major if you start noticing them more.

I've got one floater that tied itself into a knot several years ago. I was looking into a microscope, and I saw it cross my vision with this perfectly tied knot that wasn't quite pulled tight. Now it's worked itself into a tangled mess, and when I see it it's more like a hairball.

whoa

Floaters are black spots. The translucent spots you can see in the sky are sometimes called blue sky sprites, and are actually white blood cells distorting the light

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_field_entoptic_phenomen...

Nah, floaters can be kinda clear. Mine look like circles with stuff in them (they look kinda like diagrams of a cell, or maybe a simple diagram of an atom—they have kinda a dot in the middle) and some of those same circles connected in long, curly strings with tube-like (?) structures.

They do indeed “float”. If I move my eyes they move with them, then have momentum when I stop moving my eyes. They’re way more visible against static, bright backgrounds (like blue sky) but I can see them in indoor lighting, too.

I’ve had them since I was very young. The white flashes you’re referring to I’ve only noticed recently, and are very different things. They do require a bright blue sky for me to see them.

Yup, when I get floaters, I look up and then back down very quickly and then they end up somewhere I can't see them for a while.

They do look a whole lot like things we saw in biology class under microscope.

I've also had floaters and sometimes flashes (pin pricks) of light since childhood. Still have 20/20 vision, and every time I've gotten an eye exam they've said the retina looks healthy. From what I understand it'll be more of a "blizzard" of floaters when detachment is happening. At least for me the number of floaters seems to be highly correlated with my sleep quality. The flashes seem correlated with my blood pressure.

I've had them since my late teens. Mine haven't really progressed at all, but I have noticed that they seem to fluctuate a bit depending upon my hydration level. I see more if I'm dehydrated and they seem to decrease drastically if I really focus on hydration for a few days (1 gallon or more per day of water).

> Floaters are commonly caused by a (mostly) benign aging phenomenon called posterior vitreous detachment, where the vitriol gel liquefies as a person ages.

And, the longer your eye is (the higher your myopia is), the earlier this happens.

Retinal detachment is rare though, even with tons of floaters and high myopia.

Very true, if it were very common you'd see retinal surgery centers in every hospital or more blind folks in rural communities. Thankfully it's not so rare that we don't have decent treatment for it. Like the article pointed out, rising myope rates are concerning for the implication on how many people will experience retinal issues. Sight is the last sense I want to give up, maybe the warning signs of RD should be as common as knowing the warning signs of strokes.

or more blind folks in rural communities

That might not be the case, given what the others have already mentioned about lifestyle --- I imagine most rural people will be outside a lot more and looking farther than city people.

and yet whenever I leave the city to go out to a rural area it seems like the people there are in much worse shape than the city dwellers. The obesity rate seems markedly higher. I think you would be right 50 or 100 years ago but not now.

> Floaters are commonly caused by a (mostly) benign aging phenomenon called posterior vitreous detachment, where the vitriol gel liquefies as a person ages.

I've had floaters since I was 18. A couple of years ago at 59 all of the sudden I had a huge increase in floaters accompanied by flashes in the left eye. I was sure I was having a retinal detachment. Got into an eye doc right away and she said told me it was the vitreous detachment and is something that happens normally at my age. It went on for several months with the flashing and floaters. The right eye followed suit about 6 months later. I had no idea that this was something that happens to pretty much everyone around age 60. Apparently, though, a lot of people don't notice it happening.

I remember as a kid I used to peek through this semi-transparent hole in a blanket to look at floaters. I saw dozens and dozens of them. I thought they looked beautiful. At that time I wasn't sure exactly what caused them if it was related to my eyes or the blanket or perhaps dust or something. Nothing happened to my eyesight then or since, and I don't even have myopia.

I started to see floaters this year. First, it scared the shit out of me, because I only have one healthy eye and starting to see this flying dots and strings was a really scary experience. It also was just really annoying.

After the ophthalmologist checked my eye, she said what I'm seeing is called "mouches volantes" and it's something that happens when people get older. I'm "only" 37 and don't have any problems with my eyesight, which makes me wonder what caused these floaters in my case.

Anyway, it's something I have to get used to. It only really is annoying on sunny days because then I can see them clearly floating around.

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