Floaters
What are Floaters ?
Seeing some spots or mosquito like things, white or trasparant or translucent in color, which not necessarily truly exists are called floaters.
Many people have had this experience: You feel like there are mosquito-like things flying in front of them, like lines and flying insects, and disappear after a while, especially after staring at the computer or sky for a long time.
In fact, this is commonly known as floaters in ophthalmology. Many people, including the editor of this article, suffers from floaters.
Who are affected by Floaters ?
In the past, floaters were more common in middle-aged and elderly people. As smart phones and tablet computers become more and more common, adults are playing, and children also like to play. Many people still hold smart phones to play at night before going to bed, and eyes become the most burdensome organ. Overuse of the eyes easily leads to more and more eye diseases, and floaters are one of them. The prevalence of MYOPIA is increasing and along with that FLOATERS are also incresing.
Cause of Floaters
Floaters are not real mosquitoes, but a visual symptom that resembles floaters. The official name of floaters is "vitreous liquefaction" or "vitreous float".
Now the Questions is, what is the vitreous body ? The vitreous body is an important part of the eyeball, a colorless, transparent and elastic colloid, a bit similar to "transparent jelly." When this "transparent jelly" becomes turbid or gradually liquefies, you will feel mosquitoes flying in front of you, and floaters will appear.
The common causes of vitreous liquefaction are age, mostly elderly people, or high myopia, eye trauma, or fundus disease.
Treatment of Floaters
Among floaters, most of them are "Benign Floaters OR Physiological Floaters OR Good mosquitoes" and a small part are "Malignany Floaters OR Pathological Floaters OR Bad mosquitoes".
"Benign Floaters" are generally caused by excessive eye use or aging, and no excessive treatment is required. If the floating mosquito phenomenon only occurs accidentally, after a period of time, the floating mosquito phenomenon does not aggravate or change, and the position of the floating mosquito is fixed, it is not harmful for your eyes. The main symptom is that floaters appear occasionally, especially when looking at a white background, the brighter or bluer background. There is no other discomfort that affects eyesight.
A small number of people suffer from "malignant floaters", also known as "pathological floaters". This kind of floaters often indicates that the eyes are about to or have undergone pathological changes. The main symptoms are large numbers of floaters and frequent occurrence of floaters. Be careful if you have the following symptoms: sudden increase in floaters and impair your vision, abnormal flashes in front of your eyes, sudden fixation of black shadows or foggy occlusion in front of your eyes, visual field defect, vision loss, etc., you should seek medical attention immediately and receive detailed ophthalmology an examination.
So Dear Readers, Please check what kind of floaters you have. If it is the latter, it is necessary to perform a fundus examination in time. Frequent symptoms of flying mosquitoes appear in highly myopic eyes, and it is also recommended to check the eyes regularly.
Beware of following 5 Floaters
The following 5 kinds of floaters need to seek medical treatment as soon as possible:
- Suddenly, there are particularly many floaters and densely packed
- The previous number of floaters suddenly increased
- Floaters with flashing sensation
- Post Traumatic Floaters
- Floaters causing vision loss, or visual field defect.
These all details in just for basic information about the diseases. Please consult your doctor before following this by yourself. --- Dr Dhaval Patel (MD, AIIMS Delhi)
- compiled & published by Dr Dhaval Patel MD AIIMS