From time to time, you might have noticed small spots or shadows that briefly flit across your field of vision. They typically move in conjunction with your own eye movement, and they dart away when you try to look at them directly. These spots are known as eye floaters.

When you experience eye floaters for the first time, you might think that you are seeing things in your vision, like an apparition. Generally, though, eye floaters should not concern you, even if they are an annoyance. They are caused by debris floating around in the eye.

Eye floaters can assume many shapes. They look like small strands or cobwebs or squiggly lines in your vision. You only tend to notice them when you look at a bright surface, such as a vivid blue sky or a white board.

Almost everyone experiences eye floaters at some point in their lives. In most cases, they are a benign condition and rarely require medical assistance. However, they do reveal something interesting about how your eyes work.

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Eye Floaters Are a Normal Part of the Eye

Eye floaters occur within the part of the eye known as the vitreous. This is the transparent jelly-like substance that occupies the space between the lens and the retina. The vitreous makes up about 80 percent of the eye in total; it helps to keep the retina in place and provides a pathway for light coming into the eye through the lens.

The gel in the vitreous, unlike the gel in the front part of the eye, is never replenished, so any debris that gets into the vitreous will generally stay there. However, this debris tends to break apart and fracture, so the appearance of eye floaters will diminish over time. Most eye floaters will eventually settle at the bottom of the eye, just below the line of sight.

The Cause of Eye Floaters

In most cases, eye floaters are a natural sign of aging. As we get older, the vitreous tends to lose its firmness and turns into liquid; tiny fibers and pieces of connective tissue within the vitreous will break off into small clumps of cells and proteins and float around in the front of the eye. What you see isn’t the floater itself, but rather the shadow it casts on the retina.

According to Harvard Health Publications, about a quarter of people will experience some kind of vitreous shrinkage by their 60s. That rises to about two-thirds by the age of 80. In these circumstances, eye floaters are nothing to worry about.

Eye floaters can also occur in younger people, but usually those who are either near-sighted, have experienced serious eye trauma, or have undergone cataract surgery. “Near-sighted people often get floaters in their 20s and 30s,” according to Anne Summers, an ophthalmologist and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. This is because near-sighted people have an increase in the length of the eye.

When to See an Eye Doctor

Eye floaters are not very serious on their own, but a dramatic increase in the number of eye floaters all at once might imply a more serious condition that requires immediate medical treatment, especially when you’re experiencing other signs and symptoms at the same time. The Mayo Clinic lists three potential medical problems that are associated with an increase in eye floaters.

The first serious medical condition you should look out for is known as posterior uveitis, a rare condition characterized by inflammation in the uvea, or the eye wall. Posterior uveitis tends to arise suddenly, and it’s accompanied by redness, pain, and blurred vision. It might be caused by an infection, an injury, or an autoimmune or inflammatory disease. If left untreated, it can potentially lead to permanent vision loss.

The second potential cause of eye floaters is an injury or blood vessel problem that causes bleeding into the vitreous part of the eye. This could be the result of a serious medical problem, and you should not assume that the bleeding will go away on its own. Bleeding is also sometimes the result of diabetic retinopathy, which is the most common form of diabetes that affects the eye.

The third medical condition you should be aware of is a torn retina, caused by a detached vitreous that pulls on the retina with enough force to tear it. This causes a shower of new floaters to suddenly appear at once.

If you’re experiencing sudden flashes of light and peripheral vision loss, this might be caused by the pulling on the retina. You may experience it as some kind of veil or curtain that falls across your vision (although you might not feel much pain). It’s a very serious sign, and you should see a doctor immediately.

According to the National Eye Institute, retinal detachment can lead to permanent visual impairment or blindness within two or three days if left untreated. More than 90 percent of retinal detachments occur without much warning. In many cases it is not preceded by an injury or trauma; it can happen spontaneously while going about your normal routine.

Some people experience flashes of light that appear as jagged lines in both eyes, often lasting 10 to 20 minutes. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, these are not flashes from the vitreous gel pulling on the retina; instead, these types of flashes are usually caused by a migraine. You may experience a migraine with or without a headache. In either case, you should contact your doctor if you are experiencing these symptoms.

Making an Appointment with Your Doctor

If you are concerned about eye floaters, you should make an appointment with a doctor who specializes in eye disorders. Either an optometrist or ophthalmologist will work, but a serious complication will specifically require an ophthalmologist. Before you visit your eye doctor, the Mayo Clinic recommends that you should first make a list of your symptoms, note any medications you currently take, and write down questions to ask your doctor.

Diagnosing an eye problem is usually a straightforward process. Your doctor will conduct a complete eye exam, including an eye dilation test to better see the back of your eyes. “Dilating the pupil allows more light to enter the eye the same way opening a door allows light into a dark room,” according to the National Eye Institute. “Once dilated, each eye is examined using a special magnifying lens that provides a clear view of important tissues at the back of the eye.”

The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends that “adults with no signs or risk factors for eye disease get a baseline eye disease screening at age 40,” around the time that early signs of disease or changes in vision start to occur.

How to Get Rid of Eye Floaters

When to Seek Treatment for Eye Floaters

Eye care professionals are almost unanimous about this: unless your eye floaters are a symptom of a much more serious medical condition, it is better to simply ignore them than to seek an expensive and potentially risky treatment trying to get rid of them. They will not cause any harm by themselves, and although they are annoying at first, your brain will gradually adjust to the obstruction in your vision over time. This applies to the vast majority of people with eye floaters.

On rare occasions, eye floaters might become “so dense and numerous” that they begin to affect your vision and irritate your eyes — especially large floaters that do not break apart into smaller pieces. If they are impeding your quality of life or your ability to work, it might be time to see a doctor.

Be careful about choosing a treatment option. Many supposed treatments that are advertised for improving eye health will not help. Vitamin therapy, for instance, will not cause floaters to disappear.

Treating Eye Floaters

People with a serious case of eye floaters have two different treatment options, depending on what your doctor recommends. Both treatment options have significant downsides.

The first option is laser treatment. An ophthalmologist can shoot a laser directly into the vitreous, which breaks apart eye floaters and makes them less noticeable. However, laser surgery comes with serious risks; if the laser is aimed incorrectly, it could damage your retina instead. For that reasons, the risk may not be worth it. “Some people who have this treatment report improved vision,” according to the Mayo Clinic; others notice little or no difference.

The second option is a surgical procedure known as a vitrectomy. This is a procedure in which an ophthalmologist removes the vitreous through a small incision and replaces it with a salt solution. Because the vitreous is mostly water, “you will not notice any change between the salt solution and the original vitreous,” according to the National Eye Institute. The salt solution should help to maintain the shape of your eye.

Just like the laser surgery, however, the vitrectomy runs the risk of causing serious complications, such as eye bleeding, cataract, and retinal tears. And while both the victrectomy and the laser surgery may temporarily remove some the floaters, new ones can still develop after surgery.

Because of the risks and costs involved, neither treatment is necessary for common, everyday floaters. Some eye doctors may perform laser treatment for benign eye floaters, but according to Dr. Jeffrey Heier, director of retina research at Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston, laser treatment is rarely worth it. For most people “the risk to vision of the surgery is greater than the problem posed by the floater.”

Instead, Dr. Heier recommends a simple solution: move your eyes up and down or left and right. This should dislodge floaters from the front of your vision and provide temporary relief.

Treating a Retina Tear

As mentioned earlier, a sudden onset of eye floaters, when combined with sudden flashes or a loss of vision, could be the sign of a serious retina tear, in which the retina separates from the rest of the eye. If the tear is detected early enough, then your eye doctor might be able to prevent the retina from detaching completely.

The most common treatment for a retina tear is laser surgery. According to Patrick J. Skerrett, former editor of Harvard Health, a concentrated pinpoint of laser light can be used to fuse the retina to the back wall of the eye. Cryopexy, an extreme cold procedure, can achieve the same results by freezing the retina around the tear. Pneumatic retinopexy is another kind of surgery in which the doctor injects a gas bubble into the eye and then uses a freezing beam or laser light to seal the bubble against the tear.

If the retina needs to be reattached directly, then your doctor may recommend one of two surgical operations. The first is known as scleral buckling, in which some kind of material “buckles” the wall of the eye closer to the retina. A vitrectomy, a surgical procedure mentioned earlier, can also be used to reattach the retina.

If you have any doubt about whether your eye floaters might be the result of a serious medical condition that poses a risk to your health, then you should consult your eye doctor immediately. Delaying too long might result in irreversible damage.

Eye floaters are a harmless medical condition on their own — the result of dislodged cells that float freely within the soft jelly-like substance in your eye. Unless they obstruct your vision, most eye floaters do not require any kind of specific treatment. However, if you experience a sudden flood of eye floaters accompanied by flashes and vision loss, then you should seek medical treatment immediately.

If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to leave a comment below.