Eye floaters are tiny spots and specks that appear and move across your field of vision. The ophthalmologists at InVision Eye Care Specialists have successfully treated floaters for over 20 years, making them one of the most experienced eye centers in the United States for this condition. In this blog post, our experts share when it makes sense to come in to treat floaters.
Because floaters are generally harmless and only mildly impair vision, most patients who experience eye floaters will not seek treatment. While there are many eye conditions where postponing or skipping treatment can be damaging to your health and vision, the ophthalmologists at InVision Eye Care agree that it is usually acceptable to opt-out of treatment for floaters.
Although most floaters pose no serious problems, they can certainly be bothersome. If patients find their floaters annoying enough that they want them to go away, it may be the right time to treat them. Most floaters can be treated with lasers in a simple, complication-free procedure. The laser breaks up the specks floating in the vitreous, making them smaller and less noticeable.
There are some patients whose floaters are dense and large enough that the condition does negatively impact their vision. In these cases, our ophthalmologists consider floater treatment important rather than a matter of preference. For serious floater issues, a surgery known as vitrectomy is performed to pull out both the vitreous solution and the debris floating inside and then replace it with a sanitary saline solution.
Patients who choose to forego treatment for their floaters should pay enough attention to them to notice if they start to increase in either frequency or size. That is because floaters may be indicative of a separate, more serious eye condition that a trained ophthalmologist should examine them for. While floaters are most commonly the result of changes that occur naturally in an aging eye, they may also be symptoms of a torn retina, bleeding in the eye or posterior uveitis (inflammation at the back of the eye). In these situations, the floaters may go away when the underlying condition is treated.
InVision Eye Care Specialists treats floaters for New Jersey patients in Ocean County, Monmouth County, and Lakewood, NJ. To schedule an appointment with our experts to determine whether treatment is appropriate for you, please call (732) 607-8515 today.
