Yes, I know, you’re not a Doctor and I should treat the medical advice as being worth what I paid for it. With that out of the way…
It seems I have a lot more eye floaters than I did just a few months ago. It used to be that I’d only see them when looking at a flat color, like a wall or the sky, but now I see them when looking at normal things too, like my monitor, or just stepping outside.
Should I be concerned? It’s getting to the point where they are annoying and sometimes distracting (in addition to just being concerning). I’m only 28; is this normal? Can it be fixed?
I do need to go see an eye doctor soon anyway to renew my prescription–will any eye doctor work or is there a specialist I should see? Anyone have experience with this?
There are two groups of people who do exams for eye glasses - optometrists and ophthalmologists. Either one is trained and licensed to examine your eyes and tell you if you need to be concerned about your floaters. Eye Doctors: Optometrist vs Ophthalmologist vs Optician
Since you’ve noticed a change, yes, they should be checked out. Chances are they’re just Stuff floating around in your eyeball, and your brain will learn to ignore them. If they continue to bug you, then you can initiate a conversation about maybe Doing Something to fix them, but the only treatments are somewhat nervewracking and do have risks, including the potential for vision loss or blindness. So you can understand why, if they’re annoying but not dangerous, they tend to shy away from treating them.
FWIW - I have had them all my adult life and both an optometrist and an ophthalmologist are unconcerned. That of course is not generalizable to you, but hopefully will offer some interim reassurance until you can get seen.
BUT if you start to see an encroaching shadow from the periphery of your vision and/or flashing lights, get to a doctor or emergency eye clinic asap…sudden increase in floaters + these additional symptoms are indicators of possible retinal detachment. (just happened to me - got surgery in time to save a lot of my vision).
Re the floaters…in my case the floaters ramped up MASSIVELY overnight, so doesn’t sound like what you have, but I had to chip in just in case.
I’m not a doctor, but having gone through a couple of retina re-attachment surgeries, I would strongly encourage seeing a specialist. An increase in floaters can indeed be a warning sign of a retina detachment, especially if accompanied by flashes of light. It ain’t necessarily so, but not seeing a specialist is not worth the risk. Trust me on that.
I’ve had significant floaters all my life, and therefore been very careful about having yearly checks. My ophthalmologist isn’t concerned about the current situation, which has been stable for many years now, but I’m under a dire warning to hie me to a doctor (or emergency room, even) if there’s a sudden increase in the number or density of floaters, or any increase in the number of flashing lights that I very occasionally see. I take this advice very seriously, having a grandfather who suffered from retinal detachment and was left essentially blind after that. I would urge you to do the same.
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