What Are The Causes Of Eye Floaters?

And How Do You Get Rid Of Eye Floaters?

This article is dedicated to answering the two questions above: what are the causes of eye floaters and how do you get rid of eye floaters. 

Eye floaters are small, blurry specks or cloudy areas which suddenly appear in your field of vision and then go away. They consist of small clumps of gel that are literally floating in the vitreous material that fills your eyeball. Since they're inside your eye, they tend move with your eyes when you try to focus on them. What you're actually seeing are the shadows that these clumps of gel cast on the retina, which is the light-sensitive area of the eye.

By themselves, eye floaters are not threats to your eyesight, though they can be annoying because they appear as you're trying to read or watch TV. You might also notice them when you're looking at a plain background, like a blank wall or blue sky.

Once you notice an eye floater, you'll probably start seeing it over and over. People who have reached middle age are more prone to eye floaters than those who are younger. It's a natural part of growing older. But eye floaters may also occur in people who

• are nearsighted,
• have had certain types of laser eye surgery,
• have had a condition that caused inflammation inside the eye, or
• have undergone cataract surgery.

How do you get rid of eye floaters? As mentioned above, eye floaters are generally harmless, and there's not much that can be done to get rid of them. In many cases, they even fade or go away with time. The vitreous gel inside the eye tends to absorb some of the floater through natural processes, which reduces the shadow cast by the floater. Sometimes, the brain adapts to them so they become less noticeable.

Can you laser eye floaters? A type of surgery known as yttrium-aluminum-garnet or YAG surgery may be used to laser floaters in some cases. But there's a certain amount of risk involved when you laser eye floaters. Anytime you use a laser inside the eye you might cause more problems than you solve, especially if the eye is generally healthy otherwise.

For this reason, most doctors are unwilling to perform surgery for eye floaters except in the rarest of cases.

How about eye floaters vitamins? Some people believe that certain herbs, vitamins, and iodine-containing products help decrease eye floaters, but this has never been proven in clinical trials. There are no "eye floaters vitamins" that you can buy at a health food store, and there are no oral medications or eye drops that have been shown to be effective in getting rid of eye floaters.

When eye floaters appear, you should definitely see your ophthalmologist, especially if more than one appear and they are accompanied by flashes of light or other irregularities in your normal vision. This could indicate a detached retina or other serious problem in the eye.