Due to the serious consequences and potential permanent visual loss ALL patient complaints of flashes, floaters or veils, often called a curtain in their vision, need to be evaluated on an emergency basis.  We typically recommend a dilated eye examination to rule-out a retinal hole, tear, or detachment.

What Do We Notice?
Many people are not aware that they have developed PVD but some notice symptoms such as floaters, flashing lights or a veil. Floaters can take many forms from little dots, circles, lines, to clouds or cobwebs. The floaters are created by a shadow of the floating vitreal debris that is projected onto the retina. Sometimes people experience one large floater which can be distracting and make things difficult to read. The flashing lights that often occur are also caused by the PVD. As the outer part of the vitreous detaches from the retina it can pull on this light sensitive membrane, especially where the vitreous is attached quite strongly to the retina. The pull of the vitreous in these areas stimulates the retina. This stimulation causes the sensation of flashing lights since the brain interprets all stimulation signals from the retina as light. The veil may be caused from either a very large floater or a retinal detachment.

If no other abnormalities are present, the risk of visual loss is extremely low. Patients are usually cautioned, however, that they should return if they experience flashes of light, many new floaters, or a curtain-like loss of vision.  These latter symptoms may be present with a retinal hole, tear, or detachment. Otherwise, the patient may be routinely evaluated at a later date, or not at all, depending on the circumstances.

How do we treat this?
Unfortunately at the moment nothing can be done medically for this condition.  The floaters, which are often large and distracting at first, fortunately tend to "settle" to the bottom of the eye, thus relieving the annoyance.  However, this often takes weeks or months.  The brain tends to adapt to the floaters and eventually is able to ignore them, so they then only become a problem in very bright light.  In the interim you can try a few of the following options to “work around” the floater.