Floaters in eyes - anyone ever suddenly had this? Did it end well?

[cherryburton]

Please don't tell me if not, am so scared I could vomit.

Felt like I had an eye infection yesterday (eye felt hot and itchy) but then I noticed some dark floaters in my left eye. This is all slightly complicated by the fact that I don't have a lot of vision in my left eye due to an accident I had when I was very young.

Ended up in A&E and am now waiting for an appointment with the ophthalmologist (hopefully tomorrow) and am terrified as the Doctor I saw yesterday said it can be anything, a build up of cells, cholesterol, a tumour ... (He did say that eye cancer is extremely rare but I am prone to anxiety and it was obviously the only thing I registered!)

Any cheery pleasant stories to tell me please? I daren't google, I fell like I'm having a heart attack just thinking about it.

JellyBelly10 - the op you're referring to is a vitrectomy, I have had one in each eye, under a general (they offered to do it under local - um, NO! :o). It's not particularly painful, but is fairly annoying, you get loads of eye drops to use for the next month, plus you can't fly for 3 months post op, can't lift heavy objects, and you may have a gas bubble left in your eye and have to lie in a particular position post-op depending on whether they tear your retina during it. I had laser surgery first to try and fix the problem, which only partly worked.

Oooh RueDeWakening I cannot imagine having that done!!! You're v brave! But I hope it worked for you. So did it get rid of all your floaters? And does your eye eventually re-make the optical jelly or does the artificial liquid they put in actually stay there?

"plus you can't fly for 3 months post op, can't lift heavy objects, and you may have a gas bubble left in your eye and have to lie in a particular position post-op depending on whether they tear your retina during it."

Rue, that sounds terrifying!

It worked - it was significantly worse than floaters that I had though, I had a vitreous hemmorhage (sp?) so bleeding inside both eyes - fortunately v rarely both together. The first op was in 2007 and fixed that eye completely. Second op was earlier this year, and so far so good - have recently been discharged from the op clinic back to the standard one which is good news.

And your eye does remake the jelly, gradually, but during the op they remove the "scaffolding" (as the consultant described it to me!) that is used when your eye is developing in utero and doesn't need any more, so floaters/bleeds have nothing to get caught up in/on any more so if you do have further episodes they disappear much more quickly.