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Ask HN: How do you deal with eye floaters?

10 points by mateo1 ↗ HN
It's been 5 years. I can't stop noticing how every moment of every day these annoying little shadows drift in my field of vision. They're subtle, but they do affect my eye coordination, which in turn affects my focus. Not being able to direct my attention while reading text is just detrimental in so many ways. If you've had them, how do you deal with them? Do they affect your work?

17 comments

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[dead] nodex-alex
had them for 30 years, ignore them!
GaryHak
For a screen dependent worker they're making life very hard. Had them for 8 years and was struggling every day. They did not get smaller, nor break up, was feeling crippled.

VIM on dark background helped a lot!

I got lucky and had my lenses replaced and the eye fluid completely removed (Vitrectomy). A somewhat risky operation, considering my myopia, but my vision is completely clear now.

I think Vitrectomy is the only sure way to get rid of them. Simply because they get sucked out together with all the old fluid.

Beware though, the floaters could be a sign of some retinal trouble.

is_true
This. I had the same surgery. Mine were because of toxoplasmosis.
ggm
Wait for posterior vitreous detachment. It's either unnoticed, or significantly worse than boring floaters. (For me: your milage may vary) it's strongly age related. A good detachment is floaters on steroids. A bad one is a tear. The blood cells resolve as wee discs, its pretty shit.

See a competent optician. There is a very expensive laser treatment I believe for giant floaters but more importantly you may have underlying problems. (Like.. pvd)

100011_100001
Seconding this recommendation. It could be asthegmatism as well. Regardless if you have a problem with your eyes, go to an eye doctor.
pknerd
Try Manifestation. Listen Dr. Joe Dispenza.
wmoser
I’ll repeat the see and eye doctor bit because it’s important but I’ve also found they seem worse if I’m dehydrated and drinking more water seems to make a noticeable difference.
7402
I am not a doctor. This information is from the Mayo Clinic website:

When to see a doctor

Contact an eye specialist immediately if you notice:

  • Many more eye floaters than usual
  • A sudden onset of new floaters
  • Flashes of light in the same eye as the floaters
  • Darkness on any side or sides of your vision (peripheral vision loss)
These painless symptoms could be caused by a retinal tear, with or without a retinal detachment — a sight-threatening condition that requires immediate attention. [0]

[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/eye-floaters/...

kujino
Dark mode everything. Code editor in dark mode + OS theme in dark mode + DarkReader extension on your browser.

I don't know if the risks of an operation to remove them are worth it...

Also it can vary a lot, you can have more at some times and less at other times. They can end up falling down out of the field of view with time and things get better.

I also heard being well hydrated helps but I couldn't really make that correlation from my personal experience

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rehto21
Hey OP! Years ago I was diagnosed with PVD [0] - posterior vitreous detachment and I began seeing way too many floaters.

The gel in our eyes begins to shrink with age (and detach from the retina). As is the case with all things aging, it doesn't follow a set pattern. It happens early for some and late for others.

If you are seeing more floaters than you normally do, don't panic but do consider going for eye exam just to ensure that your retina is fine.

As for the floaters, my ophthalmologist gave me a long ass story about conscious attention, how he lived near a train track and with time he became immune to the disturbing sounds of trains passing by yada yada.. Point is you should become blind to the new ones with time :)

[0] https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/posterior-vitreous-detachme...

giardini
>"...with time he became immune to the disturbing sounds of trains passing by..."<

Our family once moved into a larger house in an older part of town. It took only a single night to accommodate to passing trains. But the sound of rain falling on the galvanized tin roof was magical - we tried to lie in bed and listen every rainy night but nonetheless failed!

Apparently the brain accommodates remarkably well to simple floaters. Recently, while selecting DVDs at the local library, much to the alarm of a nearby patron, I found myself swatting at a large moth attempting to land on my left hand. Almost immediately I realized the "moth" was inside my eye! A month has passed and this floater, which (according to my opthalmologist) consists of two segments of tissue hinged together at one end and which flaps like a butterfly when my eye moves, now appears as a single smaller floater. With time, perhaps it will be rendered invisible.

arnold_palmur
Just from my own experience, I've had tons of floaters my entire life (since I was around 9 years old) and I used to be entirely fixated on them. I would constantly squint and look at the sky inspecting them - are there more, have they changed? Like all things in life you get used to things and while I couldn't really say when, at some point I stopped noticing them entirely (as others have mentioned). I still have A LOT of them and they are clearly visible (as I type this I can see them) but I just don't notice them anymore unless I conscientiously focus on them.
dave_sid
Yeah me too. Eventuality I stopped noticing them.
dublin
I've had moderate floaters for a long time. I developed many more after having to look very near the sun for quite a while a number of years ago. And I may have found a way to help remove (at least some of) them.

Although I've never read this, my own conjecture is that one cause of floaters is that you're actually cooking the proteins in the vitreous humour, and that this is especially likely if you're nearsighted, since that means there's a point in front of the retina where the rays converge to a point. I suspect this provokes a localized maillard-like protein cooking reaction (irreversible, just like cooking an egg) and that it's hard for your body to clear that out.

This view is (slightly) further buttressed by the fact that my floaters have gotten a little (not hugely, but noticeably) better since I've been taking significant doses of senolytics (fisetin, quercetin, etc.) I wouldn't have expected those to make too much difference, since if the problem is just junk protein floating around, it's hardly alive, and I don't know why a senolytic would help unless the cooked cells still are alive, so maybe it's the result of some of the other things that I started at the same time (high dosing of K2, for instance) - it's hard to know for sure, but my floaters are definitely somewhat better than they were a few years ago. YMMV, but trying anti-aging treatments is probably won't hurt (but that's not certain, either!), but may help a large number of conditions. We still don't even know what we don't know about this stuff, which is one reason I get really chapped about people thinking they know what to do about new viruses using unproven gene therapies, and then trying to pass those off as "vaccines". But that's another rant entirely...

jolmg
I noticed this in Wikipedia[1]:

> It is not often treated, except in severe cases, where vitrectomy (surgery), laser vitreolysis, and medication may be effective.

I'm not a doctor, but it may be worth it to ask one about options.

I have floaters, but I can't see them unless I try very hard to focus on the sky. Your case sounds more severe.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater