Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD)

[whitedesire]

Has anyone experienced the above. It is where the jelly like substance comes away from the retina, and leaves you with floaters and flashing lights. The flashing seems to disappear but the floaters, like clouds, tend to stay with you. Statistics say it happens to about 75% of people of 65, but 10% of people around 40 also, and even a lower age. The vision is left intact, no problem, but it seems to be an old age thing, anyone had this problem, your threads welcome. Obviously, a visit to the optician/hospital is necessary to rule out tears to the retina.

[Bob]

Has anyone experienced the above.

Yep, happened to me a couple of years ago. Doc told me it was normal for people 55-70 years old. I was told that they want to monitor it a bit for about 10 days after it first occurs to make sure that a retinal detachment doesn't accompany it but, after that time period, apparently it's no big thing. When I saw the lightning flashes (which are also indicative of a retinal detachment), it was a bit spooky (especially when my eye doctor had told me a couple of weeks prior to immediately contact him if I ever saw those light flashes in the future).

[whitedesire]

Ahh ok, how are you if you don't mind me asking or PM me. What about the cloud floaters, do you still have them, do they bother you?

[Bob]

Ahh ok, how are you if you don't mind me asking or PM me.

Fine, no issue at all. A few floaters but nothing much of anything.

The reason that the the eye doctor warned me about it a couple of weeks earlier is that I went into see him because all of a sudden I saw some big floater in my other eye (it was driving me nuts, I kept "seeing" something run by as if a rat was running across the floor or something). He took one look and saw a small circular area of the retina was detached and hanging from a thread....so he marched me right into another room and stapled down the retina with a laser (and indicated that he was quite happy I came in before a much larger area of the retina was detached). He asked me about seeing lighting/light flashes then but I hadn't seen any up to that time and that somewhat surprised him. But two weeks later the light flashes occurred in the other eye and that turned out to be nothing much but the vitreous jelly moving away from the retina as you described above.

[Gaybutton]

Is there anything they can do about it?

[whitedesire]

Apparently not Gaybutton, if there are a few floaters floating around, they leave it, it is not worth meddling around with just a few floaters. They will only intefere if a tear appears in the retina after it has become detached from the vitreous jelly, they seal the tears with a laser immediately. If the retina becomes "largely" detached I suspect they operate to detach it again. The doctor gave me a leaflet and it said it is a natural occurrence and a once in a lifetime thing that will happen. The jelly type substance changes and dries out, shrinks, hence the detachment, it happens to as much as 90% of people, some don't know it even happened, and common in over 50s. The flashing lights are important to report to ensure the retina is not detached. The floaters are just clumps of something in the vitreous jelly that appear when this change happens. They can also appear in anybody. I suspect a lot of people have heard and had floaters over time, for different reasons. The doctor said to me that the floaters may get better over time, and might fade slightly, might disappear over the following months, but from what I have read, they could stay there forever. What does happen apparently though, is the brain tends to accept them and you forget about them, even though they are still there. It was quite strange really because these past 2 years I started to develop sort of forehead headaches, I wondered what these were, as I never had headaches before. On the day I saw flashing lights etc, I also had a very bad forehead type headache along with congestion in my nose, then later that afternoon flashing lights. Freaked me out, but it is slowly getting better, floaters still there, but the flashers almost disappeared, just left a bit of a grey line sometimes.

[whitedesire]

How old were you when it happened Bob. PM me if you don't want to divulge.

[Bob]

How old were you when it happened Bob. PM me if you don't want to divulge.

Sorry for the delay, was up north for a couple of days. Nah, I don't mind....the question is if I can remember. It was about 4 years ago so when I was 58 or thereabouts.

By the way, as I understand it, they will not go into the eye to get the "floaters" (I've got a little circular piece of my retina still soaring about in one eye and miscellaneous crap in both eyes); however, a guy I know this summer had eye surgery and during the process the eye surgeon did remove some floaters for the guy while he was in there. So, it can apparently be done.....but they won't apparently cut into the eye just to vacuum up debris.

The separation of the vitreous jelly (the glob of jelly-like stuff in your eyeball) from the retina is apparently a normal occurrence for many people and I was told that there is nothing that specifically causes it (or at least they're unaware of any specific cause) and that it results in no serious issues for most people that it happens to. Like I mentioned, apparently the only concern is if the separation is shortly followed by an actual detachment of the retina and I was told that this will happen to a minority within about 10 days of the separation (and, if it doesn't happen within a short time period, then I was told that you have nothing to worry about as a retinal detachment likely will never occur).

The floaters were somewhat annoying for a while but I don't even notice it anymore so I wouldn't even rate it a minor annoyance at this point.

[whitedesire]

Thanks Bob, yes (not that I'm doubting you) they won't operate to get rid of the floaters, they are annoying me at the moment, I hope they tone down a bit. I was told "give it time" and they get less noticeable and your brain accepts them, which is fine, but in the meantime, so annoying.

Thanks for your experiences anyway, it does help.

[Bob]

Thanks Bob, yes (not that I'm doubting you) they won't operate to get rid of the floaters, they are annoying me at the moment, I hope they tone down a bit. I was told "give it time" and they get less noticeable and your brain accepts them, which is fine, but in the meantime, so annoying.

Thanks for your experiences anyway, it does help.

No problem and, yes, quite annoying for the first month or two. After that, you won't notice them much. What was funny (annoying) to me for a while at first was I'd be sitting reading the newspaper or watching tv or whatever and then I would think that I saw a rat or some such thing run across the living room carpet....but it was just the one big (damn) floater. Four years later, I notice the floaters only when somebody's mentioning them but, other than that, they don't affect anything I do.