so have you ever seen drifting spots, cobwebs or shadows in your vision? we
call those visual floaters and in this video we're covering the three things
that everyone needs to know about this common ocular condition so let's take a
look
hey guys this is dr. Joseph Allen from Doctor Eye Health bringing you the very
best in tips and education about your eyes and your vision and here on this
channel we do a lot of different vision product reviews as well as educational
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we'll include additional information and anything else that we forget to mention
today I also want to give a shout out to my home base here the buffalo eye clinic
where we're shooting today if you live in the community make sure
to check us out if you haven't already we're always happy to help now let's go
over visual floaters so visual floaters are actually one of the more common
complaints that an eye doctor hears about every single day and if you've
never experienced them they show up as little spots just like gnats or bugs
that seemed to drift or move out of our vision as well as cobwebs that when you
try to look at them they seem to always drift and move out of your way so you
can never quite catch up with them when these are a new experience for somebody
that can be pretty scary right anytime our vision changes or if something like
we're getting spots in our vision it kind of gives us that instinct fear that
hey we might be going blind and even with that being said people tend to
ignore coming in to see the eye doctor to get the professional opinion of
what's going on people just they just don't know about it and
they tend to just think oh it'll get better on its own and then there are
those same people that end up rushing into the clinic on like on a Friday
afternoon right as the clinic is closing and I don't want you to be one of those
people I want you to realize what's going on so that you can get it treated
and taken care of right away so let's go over my top three things you need to
know about visual floaters number one is that floaters are a normal part of Aging
you see there's this gel that sits inside the eye
we call it the vitreous humor and it takes about 90% of the eyes volume keeps
the eyes shape and acts almost like a cushion for the eye in any sort of
episode of trauma and this gel actually degrades over time into more of a liquid
when that happens the pieces of the collagen of the gel that are left start
to form little deposits and strands and they sit inside
that liquid and that's what gives us that floating appearance as it kind of
drifts back and forth when light enters the eye and hits those deposits it
causes light to scatter giving us kind of a shadow image onto the retina on the
back of the eye and that's exactly why we see floaters the way that we do
again floaters are a normal part of Aging and if you hit around the age of
60 or higher you already have a 25% chance of having these floaters and if
you reach the age of 80 you're at about 66 percent chance but it's not just due
to age there are some eye conditions that predispose you to having these
floaters earlier on such as being very nearsighted like myself I'm very I'm
fairly nearsighted I'm about a minus six you can't really tell today because I'm
wearing contact lenses because I have that higher prescription my eyes a
little bit longer and with a really longer eye that gel starts to degrade a
little sooner so that means I've had floaters for almost five years now and I
really don't notice them as much except when I'm going outside and I look at a
blue sky or if I'm looking at like a white background like on a blank wall so
I want you to realize that yes floaters are generally a normal experience for
everyone as we get older and even more so for people who have a higher
prescription so that brings us to the second thing that everyone needs to know
about floaters and that's the risk of what's called a retinal tear or a retinal
dattachment. you see that gel that's inside the eye has an outer layer that's
made of more collagen we call that the vitreous cortex and it kind of acts like
a shell but it's attached to the retina on the very back surface of the eye and
as that gel starts to degrade and turn more into a liquid it peels away from
the back of the retina and occasionally it can tug on the retina typically and
the outer edges starting off and when that happens it kind of acts like you're
pulling onto a poster off of the wall and it can actually cause a little tear
a complete hole or it can even rip off the entire retina from the back of the
eye completely and recall that a retinal detachment and that is a true ocular
emergency now sometimes there are no warning sign
of a retinal tear or detachment but frequently people come in they start
complaining that hey I have a sudden onset of new floaters or you know
there's all these new little floaters floating around in my visions blurry or
even they say that there's a bright flash of light in their eye off to their
side kind of like a camera flash or a lightning bolt and that occurs because
that's kind of that peeling of the back of the eye from the retina causes a
physiological excitation of the retina and our brain interprets that as a flash
of light now if you're experiencing any of those signs and symptoms and you
haven't talked to your doctor already you need to pause this video call your
eye doctor make an appointment to be seen because this can be the signs of
that tear or detachment and the sooner it gets identified and treated the
better the outcome so don't put it off you only get two eyes take care of them
additionally because of those same peeling forces of the gel from the
retina and the back of the eye there can be some other complications particularly
when it comes to what's called the macula the macula is the central part of
our retina that gives us our crystal-clear vision looking straight
ahead so if that gel starts to peel away from the macula it can tug on the macula
and cause the development of what's called macular edema which are little
cysts like developments within the retina causing our vision to be blurry
and once it peels away another serious consequence is a development of a
macular hole which is the same thing as the kind of the retinal hole off to the
sides from the jel except it happens in the central macula so when you're
looking straight ahead you can no longer see directly what you want to look at so
it makes things very difficult for people to read or drive or see clearly
people may even become legally blind from that condition again all of these
different conditions that we mentioned can be identified and treated better
when it's discovered earlier so don't hesitate to see your doctor if you're
having these symptoms get in now so the third thing that everybody needs to know
about floaters is the treatment options available now I know I spent the
a couple of minutes of this video explaining the risks of a retinal tear
or detachment or other conditions we're gonna bypass talking about those
treatments for now we'll revisit those in another video but for floaters
there's generally three different treatments one is of course not really
much of a treatment but more of just observation most people's visual
floaters are not serious enough to require treatment yeah they can be a
little bit of a note a little bit annoying but over time those floaters
Gentoo drift down due to gravity and out of your field of view or your brain just
learns to adapt and get used to it to the point where a lot people say you
know I don't even notice the floaters anymore other people though these
floaters can be really large and they can drift right in this front of the
central part of your vision and it can stop you from seeing the board correctly
when we're testing your eyes and it can prevent you from doing just you know
your daily life activities that you enjoy even from things like driving or
going to work can be difficult for some people and those individuals are really
good candidates for the other two treatments that are out there
number one is what's called a vite trek to me this is the oldest type of
procedure that we have for correcting floaters that's where they surgically
remove the gel from inside the eye they suck it out while simultaneously
putting a new fluid inside the eye to keep the eyes shape and keep the eye
pressure the same with that they remove all the gel so all the floaters go with
it the downside and the reason why many doctors don't recommend this procedure
is because there's a higher rate of complications and so you're only good
candidate for that procedure if your vision is significantly affected by
those floaters the other option actually came out pretty recently really what's
going on is that the development of a new laser procedure where they can zap
away the the floaters inside the eye almost reminds me of like playing the
old classic arcade asteroid game so it's developed in Wisconsin by a surgeon who
had been testing this out on patients and you know his success rate was
incredibly high with a very low complication rate with that being said
it still may not be beneficial for everybody because of the location of the
floaters maybe the severity
other different eye diseases that you might have but certainly different
options you need to know about and consider discussing those with your
doctor so question of the day do you have vitreous floaters or do you
have an interesting story about how you had floaters or maybe a retinal tear or
detachment connect with us down below in the comments section love to hear what
you guys have to share alright guys thanks so much for checking out our
video here on dr. eye health I'm dr. Joseph Allen bringing you the very best
in tips and education about your eyes and your vision if you want to check out
more videos just like this one go ahead and click the link over here to the side
keep an eye on it we'll talk to you soon