What are the floating spots in your eyes and what are they for?
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They happen because of normal changes happening in your eyes. As you age, tiny strands of the gel-ish substance that fills your eye stick together and cast their shadows on your retina. They don’t have a purpose, they just exist as a part of normal changes happening in your body as time passes.
Your eye ball is full of jelly. Sometimes that jelly gets messed up. They don’t do anything for you and they don’t go away.
I’ll add that MOST of the time, a few floating spots here and there are normal. But if you see:
– a sudden increase in floating spots. Like a LOT of them all of a sudden that weren’t there before
– the spots are actually flashing, like in time with your heartbeat
– it affects your ability to see clearly
Then you should go see an eye doctor.
They are also remnants of the structure that existed inside your eye when it was forming in the womb. It helped keep the shape of your eye while it developed, then dissolved into the jelly inside of the eyeball. Some bits can remain, and those are the spots you see.
Mine are from wet macular degeneration. Have to get shots to reduce/eliminate. It’s really weird when you get the injection and it sits there like a giant bubble for maybe an hour.
There’s three types, that I’m aware of.
One is the shadow of blood vessels on your retina. These are the most common in healthy eyes. Your brain usually ignores these, but if light hits your retina at the right angle, you’ll see them for a bit.
The second one: your eye is filled with a substance called ‘vitreous fluid/humor ’. This fluid is a complex network of cross-linked collagens. Damage to the eye can cause some of the collagens to clump together, casting a shadow on the retina.
The third one is damage to or deterioration of the retina, caused by disease. This one is less of a “floater”, but more of spot that becomes fuzzy in your vision. If untreated, this spot can grow and eventually cause blindness.
Those are proteins in your eye. They look a little fuzzy because of the way light refracts around them. They generally don’t move because they are suspended in the fluid in your eyes. Over time, your brain learns to ignore them, and they get filtered out. As you get older, they can clump together and form bigger ones, or get displaced so you see new ones. Unless there is a sudden increase and extreme in the number of them you see, it’s absolutely nothing to worry about.
Like anogher commenter said pay heed to some symptoms like rapidly changing severity, character or frequency of the floaters and see a doctor if that is the case. When that is not the case, it is v normal to have these to some degree. There are called Mouches Volantes. You seem them especially well when you look at a white wall or a blue sky. More info here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater
I guess my eye-jelly needs a reboot. Anyone got a spare?
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