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Comment by cogogo | Hacker News Reader

Over the years I have seen a few threads on tinnitus. I have it very mildly and doesn’t bother me much. On the other hand I have had “floaters” in my eyes since I was a teenager (probably just when I noticed them). Until I saw a doc I thought I was going blind but apparently they run in my family. They are like visual tinnitus and my god do they drive me crazy. I find wearing sunglasses helps me ignore them but they can be brutal. I am a big skier and in flat light they drive me bonkers. Not sure I have seen these discussed here but maybe I missed it.

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As someone with both as well, yeah they are there but really they don't bother me.

I cannot change them so I don't worry about them, they are just little my little floating jelly blobs friends that visit when I am at my computer.

This is the only way. Gotta gaslight yourself into liking them lol

One need not like them to be familiar

Also this is why I like dark mode in everything. They're much less noticeable.

There's some short manga thing about an anthropomorphic floater if you like this vibe

Thankfully, I don't notice them much on the computer, but driving under a clear blue sky; I can't help noticing them.

Also have floaters, but I suspect that if you’re the sort of person who notices and is annoyed by tinnitus (like I have been in the past) then you’re possibly also more likely to notice other body sensations, like floaters, audible heartbeats, tics, etc.

I know I go through phases of noticing stuff. When I just get on with living I no longer notice them, unless I go looking for them.

Not exactly a revelation, I know.

This!

I started noticing a lot less annoying stuff like that after reducing my caffeine intake and overall stress level.

Well well well, today I feel less alone in this world

I have both as well. Floaters are mildly annoying, but at least when you lie in bed at night you don't see them in the dark.

There is also visual snow syndrome to keep you company at night.

Wait, that’s not a thing everyone sees when they close their eyes?

Apparently not, but it also seems like everyone does, lol

Maybe it's like a dimly lit room. Some people can fall right asleep while others will say they can't sleep unless it's completely dark, but it's the same amount of "distraction" either way.

That's not the same thing as visual snow. Or rather, it doesn't have to be. Lots of people do see phosphenes with their eyes closed, like "prisoner's cinema". Human vision is wild.

Lol I actually do see them in the dark. Not as much but still there. I've gotten used to them at this point thankfully

Start eating pineapple, you will be surprised of the effect on the floaters.

Interesting. This is from personal experience? Has anyone else eaten pineapple and had a similar experience?

Apparently the subject of some small studies, could do with some replication

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health-and-nutrition/pinea...

Interesting. Summarizing: pineapples contain a compound which breaks up collagen. No proof it does that to the human body, or floaters specifically.

But if it did, I’ve got terrible collagen and so I won’t be eating pineapple everyday, regardless of what the Taiwanese pineapple council would like me to do.

Pineapple contains enzymes that digest flesh. I don't know if that's relevant here, but it seemed worth mentioning.

Even so, how would a meaningful amount of it be delivered to the eye from oral ingestion without damaging anything in between?

There's something to be said about HN, the supposed rationality and intelligence of the forum, and the massive blind spot posters have about anything medical or otherwise biological.

There is no scientific consensus on it!

Although I doubt there's any harm in eating more fruit.

There is some actual science here, just the studies aren't great. I have floaters and stumbled on research out of Taiwan related to this. Mostly out of Tiawan. There is some possible confirmation from Italy, but the study was a cocktail treatment, so you can't isolate the bromelain effects.

What I haven't seen is any properly controlled study proving it false. Just a cluster of researchers in Tiawan with flawed study construction.

One can always get the surgery, where they vacuum them out..doesn't seem worth the risk to me, even if they annoy me.

I believe there’s a laser surgery to break up the big ones that’s would have far less adverse side effects (though, I suppose maybe the chance of something even worse).

I talked to my ophthalmologist about this (he was not only good, he was a professor at a teaching hospital)

He said, there may be some doctors who purport to do this kind of thing. The way he was saying it though was maybe you could floater removal, and a butt lift at the same time from a sketchy doctor.

There's a typical problem with many sorts of simple treatments. Even though they're simple, organizing 'proper' medical studies on their effect is quite expensive. It's not the drugs that are expensive in medical trials, but the organization, staffing, recruitment, monitoring, and so on. Who's going to pay?

With patentable drugs this isn't a problem, because big pharma stands to make billions if they discover a patentable treatment, but something like pineapples can't be patented or profited off of. For another example, in most of Asia you will see ginger recommended medicinally/prophylactically just about everywhere. I always assumed it was kind of hokey, but when you look at what studies have been done (e.g. as a treatment or prophylactic for colds), not only does it have an effect, but a rather large one.

Indeed. As I see it, it boils down again and again to this: Is someone reading the primary molecular-biology literature? Anyone?

(Law of headlines: No.)

For instance, Ginger and its pungent constituents non-competitively inhibit activation of human recombinant and native 5-HT3 receptors of enteric neurons, as they say. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nmo.12107

Ginger is a nausea receptor blocker. For one. It just… is. And it has to be a ton of other things too.

And it's very challenging to find the right words for this. This whole thing about propagation of information. "Hey did you know that humans don't read? They can but they don't, because if this or that was worth reading, someone would have told them!"

and yeah, almost no matter what I write on this subject I always sense a pungent bitterness in the words haha

It's always the problem of not knowing what you don't know. And as one grows older you tend to learn that you know less and less than you once thought, at least if you continue to seek out knowledge. Which makes it a bit paradoxical. The more you know, the more you know how little you know.

How can we possibly talk about something without a scientific concensus.

Partner may be happy with pineapple :) But I wouldn't expect much more.

I'm bothered constantly by the way statements are shared without any back up. Cite a source at least.

I am taking some bromelain and papain capsules which according to some (small) studies should help. In my experience, the floaters became more transparent, but don't disappear. This is still useful i guess.

That stinks, sorry to hear.

It's mentioned when tinnitus comes up, or when dark mode isn't available. Couple months ago, someone recommended a supplement that it seems could easily(?) be DIY'd in case it's snake oil (even if it's more expensive, then they don't "win"!) :)

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Thanks. I have been looking for "unknown or expired link" for ages.

DOH!

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=3&prefix=true&que...

Thank you! Tested this time: “floaters”. As of now, top of page three has that potentially-useless supplement that caught my eye.

Before was a now-rare error :)

I had floaters for years, they slowly disappeared. Occasionally start coming back again and disappear. When they disappear, I initially kinda miss them, because I start using them as stopwatch. Just spent 5 mins checking; I don't have any right now. I really think I would enjoy having one or two of different sizes and speeds, permanently. I guess that's just wishing for a superpower.

Yeah, they can literally go out of focus depending on their distance to the retina.

Called visual snow. Many people who suffer from it also have tinnitus.

And they're not "floaters" but look like old school TV statics. Easier to see over plain color (blue sky, night time etc.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome

Visual snow is different from floaters, though.

Floaters are protein debris flakes literally floating in the fluid of your eyeballs. They're not neurological. They become most noticable when moving your eyes. And over time their appearance changes as they slowly migrate, often times going in and out of focus.

You're right, but not everyone can tell the difference and not everyone can describe their experiences very well. There's also the blue field entoptic phenomenon (white blood cells!), and a bunch of similar things within the eye which can look similar to "floaters".

Having both floaters and visual snow, there is absolutely no way anyone would ever mix them up, though. Incredibly different experience.

also have floaters. there have been moments in life where i overfixated on them for a month or two at a time and would think theyre getting worse. and then i would get busy with something (like having a child) and i would forget about this problem entirely and then randomly remember they exist. the brain is very good at ignoring things.

Your brain keeps ignoring like 25% of what you see -- your nose. Unlike blind spot, eyes really see the nose, and differently so depending on where you look.

I got a large amount of floaters in my left eye after a sparring session where I was hit in the eye. Also had flashing in the periphery of my vision when I moved my eye, so I went to an eye doctor to have it examined. Luckily he couldn't see any signs of detachment and it's also been stable for well over a decade and a half now without any worsening.

I find that they mostly don't annoy me now, but it genuinely took almost ten years for me to get to that stage. I would focus on them all the time, in particular during a period where I suffered from severe health anxiety.

In general I feel much less anxious about everything now than I have previously, and incidentally now is also when I almost don't notice either the floaters or my (very) mild tinnitus.

Same for me. But I suspect I got them by practicing spinning kicks in Tae-Kwan-do. I have to get checked for detachment, but I am good. Doctor told me that eventually my brain would erase them, What I have been doing just ignore them as much as possible.

My doctor told me the same, but I think it's the wrong way to phrase it because I truly expected them to become invisible and got frustrated when they didn't. What they mean when they say that is probably that you learn to ignore them (unless you can't stop focusing on them), but they are by no means erased.

I've had them all my life. I remember watching a some video a few years back that said they're more noticeable against a bright/white background, which checked out with my past experiences. And judging by your skiing comment, probably for yours as well!

Same, tinnitus and floaters. And the number of others with both makes me wonder if they are correlated.

I've lived with my floaters for twenty years or more, but sometime on a recent holiday the biggest one moved slightly to obscure the central vision on one eye much more often. Now when a floater in the other eye drifts onto the central area, I just can't focus. I have to flick my eyes to the side hundreds of times a day, and it's annoying enough that I'm considering a vitrectomy.

I went for an eye test earlier this year because I felt I had a massive floater that would not go away after several months, the optician said that a very early cataract was developing - so, its really just a normal floater but when it sits in front of the occlusion, the effect is magnified. Optician said a couple of years for the cataract to be significant enough to remove.

I always thought floaters are part of everybody's eyes since they seemed like dust bits, and thats everywhere and our eyes are wet. One just decides to not focus on that but otherwise its same for everybody, at least thats what I thought.

Nothing bothersome. Not having any tinnitus I could imagine (annoying constant ringing), but due to many rock/metal concerts spent in first row there is some base 'white noise' if I focus hard on it. So I don't, same with floaters.

Have both. Also had floaters since at least teen years. Neither bother me substantially although I think I have lost most of 8 kHz volume in my left ear and have tinnitus that I think matches that frequency.

You know what does bother me?

The scintillating scotoma as well as retinal migraine symptoms, the former starting in middle school and latter in my 20s. Fortunately neither is frequent now but damn I used to break into a cold sweat with either and to this day am a bit reluctant to drive because of both.

Anecdotal but I heard some people with autoimmune issues have their floaters go away when they change their diet in a way that improves the autoimmune symptoms.

I have the same problem. Some good mitigations are dark mode on the computer and using very dark, yellow/brown alpine sunglasses in bright sun.

There's a laser treatment for floaters now (laser vitreolysis). It's not always applicable and it has its own risks and side effects.

Anmy papers on that working. The main NHS hospital for eyes in UK (Moorfields) says that has no proof of working.

Floaters don't pose any danger as long as its long term stable condition and not sudden spike indicating ie retina issues. Why the heck would anybody risk eyesight for such thing? Or is it making life a nightmare for more obsessive individuals?

Weird, I also have floaters and snowboard but they've never bothered me that much. I can just tune them out and don't notice unless I'm looking for them. Come to think of it, this is probably the first time I've noticed a floater in years. It's probably a mental game, similar to how you can always see your nose but never pay attention to it

Yeah, or to the frames of your glasses.

Or the existence of your tongue.

There's floaters and then there's asteroid something; you can always go and see a specialist, I believe there's even a treatment for it where they basically filter the particles from the fluid in your eyes.

wait until you get a vitreous detachment. (> 75% get it after 65)

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