PSA: Please see eye doc ASAP for increased floaters (detached retina)!!

[WalkaboutTed]

PSA=public service announcement 
I've been offline for a bit because my left eye has been recovering from a detached retina. I've had increased floaters for months,  but kept putting off "unnecessary" doctor visits until I got my second covid jab. I'm a fool because I know better, I have several risk factors (diabetes, previous eye surgery, nearsightedness) and I'm a nurse to boot.  

Before last weekend I had a new, bigger floater and knew I couldn't put off a visit.   Yes, I had a detached retina, apparently it had been getting worse very slowly until it wasn't. I'm not out of the woods yet as far as fully healing, but I have permanent damage, fogginess and a big grey floater from 0900 to 1300 in my field of vision. Its not so bad during the day, but driving at night in dimly lit areas is no longer safe for me.

I could have lost most of my vision in my left eye simply because I'm an idiot.  So, please, if you have any weird sh*t going on with your eyes, please don't wait. I couldnt get into an ophthalmologist quickly enough, so I saw an optometrist last Monday morning in Las Cruces. He got me into an El Paso ophthalmologist as soon as I could drive down there.  One night in a hotel and 700+ miles driving to get it rechecked three times. Now I get to go weekly to Las Cruces for a month. 

So, please, do as I say, not as I did!
Ted

 

[mpruet]

Sorry to hear that.  I don’t want to add insult to injury, but also want to add to your PSA...   ;-)
(This extra PSA is meant for the general public...)

Anyone with diabetes should have periodic visits to an ophthalmologist even if you don’t notice any weird s##t.  It is fairly common for a diabetic to develop glaucoma and that’s usually unnoticed until it’s too late.

 

[crofter]

So sorry to hear you had this happen. I had my retina worked on also with a laser, not for the faint of heart. 

This type of eye care is covered under medical insurance, so like other eye conditions including dry eye claims will be paid even if no "vision plan" coverage. So get your peepers checked.

Also AREDS-2 vitamin when you are in a healing process with your eyes.

At least you are on the mend now. Blessings. -crofter

 

[sreesekelley]

posterior vitreous detachment with retina tear. I know the feeling well. Doc welded my retina back with a laser and I get annual checkups with a split lens microscope and ultrasounds.

Take care of yourself.

 

[gsfish]

A new neighbor noticed some loss of peripheral vision in one eye while reading the morning paper. he picked an Ophthalmologist online and called. The Doctor told him to come in right then that it could be serious.

Once at the Doctor's his right eye did have a measured loss of the peripheral vision. The Dr then checked his left eye for a base line and found loss of vision in the same area. He immediately stopped the exam telling my neighbor to get back in his car and head to the ER a mile or so down the road (wife was driving), he would call ahead and they would be waiting for him.

Turned out it wasn't a problem with his eyes, he was having a stroke! Happy ending is that he came through with no major problems.

PS: Always wear eye protection when working in situations where there is a possibility of eye injury. I heard a foreman absolutely screaming at one of his men one day. The guy was using a side grinder without glasses or face shield. What freaked the foreman out so bad was that the worker already had a patch over one eye and if he lost the remaining eye would have been blind for life.

Guy

 

[maki2]

When I saw sparkly white flashes at the outside corner of my right eye late one night I was very concerned. The next morning i woke up to tons of floaters and lots of coudy stuff with only small patches of clear vision areas. I went to the ER the next morning. They sent me to an opthamologist who checked for a retinal detachment. What happened was a Posterior Vitreos Detachment,k commonly called by the initials PVD. No problem they said and I was told the cloudy stuff would clear up. However they were wrong about that.

A few monyhs later I had cataract surgery and was again told to be patient that my vision would clear up on its own. But it did not, so I got a referral to abdfifferent retinal specialist who gave me the bad news, I had developed macular puckering from micro tears in my retina caused by the PVD. So I then underwent surgery to remove the fliud from my eye which was then replaced with new fluid. That was supposed to stabilize the puckering. But I was one of the 2 in a 100 patients at it did mot work for so the puckering kept getting worse,. That meant my visiual field looked warped and I alson lost my central detail vision.

While that additional puckering was taking place I had a PVD in my left eye. Same thing happened, thick clouds in my visual fIeld and micro trama to my retina. So a few months later I had ssrgery on my left eye to do the fliid change and then a few weeks later surgery on my right eye to do an epiretinal peel to help let the macular puckering flatten back out. It takes 3 months to recover from the fluid change surgery to get clear vision again and more than a year to get better vision after an epiretinal peel. But in reality it took closer to 3 years to get better vision back folowing the epiretinal peel surgery.

But my vision is pretty good now. My distance vision is fine. I still have several blanked out grey areas in my right eye. My visual fields will always be wavy looking. My detail central vision is gone for good but my brain has retrained itself to use a slightly off center focal point. My visual fields still have warping in them. But it is rather like noise cancellation effect, the waves are mirror images from each eye so the left almost cancels out the more pronounced waves from my right eye. When I close one eye or the other then things do look warped.

On an everyday basis 5 years after this trouble started I really dont notice it unless I am trying to look at very small things. But it is only in this ladtbyear that I can once again read a perback book without the lines of text looking like a wave form with lots of gey spots in it. Partly because my brain has adapted the foal point to being off center and partly because some of the macular puckering seems to slowly be getting a little flatter.

So yes, if you do notice some flashing lights , if you do suddenly notice a lot of new floaters go and see an opthamologist rigt away. PVD is a normsl part of aging, it happens to most people with nothing more serious than a few new floaters in your vision. But for some of us it can result in retinal and macular damage. But just remember that damage might happen over time so stay aware of that and if you notice changes such as things looking a bit warped or wavy get to a retinal specialist right away. Be your own advocatte, don't let a doctor just blow you off. In my case 4 doctors told me it would all clear up in a few months. All 4 of them were wrong, I finally connected with the right retinal specialist who kept me from majo, permanent vision loss. I do have some permanent damage but it has not made me majorlly visually handicapped. That could eadily have happened if I was not a persistent fighter on my own behalf. Plus of course it helped a lot that I am not all that afraid of having surgeries. There is a ridk of course with any surgery but I would have lost my vision without those 5 eye surgeries.

 

[MoTiger]

What is causing all of these problems? I have never heard of anyone having any of this, other than harmless floaters. I've had floaters my whole life since l I was a little kid. During the past year it seems like they are more noticeable, but I have attributed that to going full-time in my van, and I'm outdoors, so the lighting is different. I think I'm just noticing them more.

Otherwise, I have dry eyes, nearsighted, minor cataracts, non-diabetic. Should I be concerned? Btw, my vision has actually improved.

Unfortunately, my health insurance is only good on the East side of South Dakota.

-Stymie

 

[maki2]

PVD is an age related condition. You are seeing it mentioned more here as this forum has a lot of older members. I doubt there is an overall increase of retinal issues. It is just a matter of the quantity of older people participating versus forums with a younger age group bias.