Posterior vitreous detachment: the glob of vitreous humor that fills your eyeball contracts and detaches from the back of the eye. It happened to my left eye in November of 2015. It happened to my right eye last week, only uglier: late Wednesday night, a huge floater suddenly showed up my right eye, floating and flapping around as I scanned lines of text, blocking them. It's a kind of smiley-shape with a dot just off one end, very shaggy. Trying to track it got me white flashes at the periphery of my vision, which got me on the phone to my eye doctor the next morning. They scheduled me for an appointment the next day.
The eye doctor took some long looks at both eyes. He wasn't happy, and told me I was going to see a specialist, immediately -- "If you have someone to drive you."
"Why's that?"
"If they need to put you under for surgery," he said.
He was concerned the retina of my right eye might be torn.
That was sobering enough that I almost wished I had been drinking. I texted Tam to meet me at home, put on two sets of sunglasses (the doctor had dilated my eyes a lot) and drove home, where I handed over the keys to Tam and we set out for the eye surgeon, five miles away.
That office was devastatingly efficient. An assistant was calling my name before I had finished checking in. He did a quick assessment, dilated my eyes even more, numbed them a little and handed me over to the specialist M.D..
Dr. Moorthy is one of those people-- Did you ever meet a subject-matter expert who was so calmly confident that it was reassuring at first sight? He was about three times as much that as I have encountered, and yet not at all overbearing. Just entirely in control of the situation. That was good, because I was starting to panic. It had been building since hearing "...someone to drive you." All that drained away: if something was wrong, this guy was going to fix it, all in a day's work.
He looked more closely at my eyes than they have ever been looked at -- bright lights, lenses, a specialized camera. The conclusion is that it's a huge floater (and a flock of smaller ones) as a result of PVD, and I will need to look for any signs of retina problems ("clouds" in my eye that don't move, loss of peripheral vision and so on) for the next several weeks. He'll check again in four weeks and again a month later.
This eventually happens to everyone. Being nearsighted and female means it is most probably going to be sooner rather than later.
That darned floater is still in my eye. It's a little smaller and less shaggy, but it keeps flipping around, usually ending up right at the center of my eye. It's like trying to read through decorative iron scrollwork. The doctor tells me it will eventually subside. I'm looking forward to that.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
10 comments:
At last something I can add some expertise to; it happened to me many years ago. The viscous pullback ain't no big thing. The danger is it can pull out (detach) the retina while or after occurring. That is serious, but with some luck and prompt attention it is fixable. Just keep an eye on it.
Glad it wasn't as bad as it could have been, sorry it hasn't been totally cleared.
Hope it gets better soon
Unfortunately there's not pleasant alternative to getting old.
I've got that going on in my left eye for the past 3 weeks. It's slowly making its way toward the periphery of my vision where it shouldn't be a great problem. It started at the top of the eye, crossed right over the center of my vision, and continued on.
I have great sympathy for you. The wife and kid have had many retinal surgeries, so we know the risks and the pain.
How scary for you, Roberta. Nice that your MD was such a calm one. (You have grill work. I have a lace curtain. What's in a name?)
I spent a couple years reading with the book on my lap because the floater moved out of the centre of my eye with my head tipped forward.
Bloody hell. (Words aren't failing me, but I'm not about to turn the air blue on your patch, here.) Glad to hears it's... not "not serious", but more along the lines of "not immediately and horribly critical", I guess.
Goes without saying that I'm glad you're OK and seem to have a handle on this thing, but I'm saying it anyway. :D
(Adding to the list of "things I know about and hope to never need to know about". I'm gonna need a bigger wheelbarrow, soon-ish.)
I love Dr. Moorthy! Not seeing him currently, but was for some uveitis problems for a while.
My first PVD came with a retinal tear in 2014, on a Saturday evening. Knowing the symptoms well from nursing school, where I paid extra attention because dad went blind in one eye due to retinal detachment, I hustled down to the eye emergency room in Philadelphia where a resident pooh-poohed my concern "it's just a PVD..." until he found the tear. Then he redeemed himself, by finding a colleague who walked me across the street and calmly performed laser surgery to seal the tear at ten p.m., while beloved spouse filled out the paperwork in the empty office lobby. Like you, I got a really competent, reassuring surgeon who calmly explained what he was going to do and then did it. PVD II came a couple of years later in the other eye, and I got the same reassuring lecture, and request to come back in four and eight weeks for rechecks. Knock on wood, 8 and 6 years on, all is still well - wishing you the same!
Thank you, Nik! I'm happy it worked out well for you. It's reassuring to read.
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