Eye floater

[Ansumpasty]

Anyone had a massive eye floater in the front of your vision and now able to ignore it?

Got checked out yesterday (dilating eye drops and scan of the eye) for a new floater that is very large and like a prawn shaped cloud. Thankfully, nothing has detached and my retina is fine. There’s a possibility it’s been there for a long time and moved. The optician said it could be some kind of vessel that is meant to dissolve when I was still a foetus and has moved into my line of sight.

I have been so stressed lately, so feel that may have something to do with it (not possible according to Google but so many posts suggesting the same).

Because I was so terrified of what it was for a few days and focused on it none stop (before I went and had it checked) I can’t stop focusing on it and can see it from the moment I wake until I go to sleep. It makes whatever it’s over look cloudy, so I feel like I have to rub my eye.

I’m so relieved about it not being anything scary as my anxiety was through the roof, but now I can’t unsee the bloody thing and it’s driving me crazy!!

And please no horror stories as my anxiety can’t take it 😯

Yes, I have one. I'm actually quite annoyed as I saw the headline and BANG it's reappeared. It's left eye, below the middle and slightly to the left, shaped like a small woolly mammoth head with a wispy tusk, looking right. It's brown though, cannot see through it at all really, but it's only over a small part lower left, doesn't sound as big as yours but it is hellishly annoying as I think this woolly mammouth is something creeping into left vision if a catch 'sight' of it. I've had it for at least 25 years, and I never see it unless someone mentions FLOATERS in whatever connection. So poo floating in the toilet is another trigger. cocktails with floaters Etc.

I'll take myself off the computer and make a cup of coffee, and it'll be gone..

Haha, sorry for the reminder! I also had to crack all the floater jokes while in with the optician to stop myself having a panic attack..

I’m hoping this moves out the middle of my eye soon as it’s so hard to not see it. It sometimes drifts higher and then I’m aware of it but can ignore it. If I cover my other eye it’s awful as it’s fuzzy where the floater is. I probably need to stop doing that!
Also need to stop rubbing my eye lid as that’s not helping 😑

I've had floaters since I was a teenager. I was very worried about them for years, and can't now understand why I didn't mention it to my parents. Anyway, I now know what they are. I found in the past that I could sort of flick my eyes to the side. The floaters would begin to drift slowly in the direction in which I'd 'flicked'. It might be that you could try to flick yours to one side, though since it's big that mightn't help.

Hopefully your brain will adjust and you'll just cease to see it. I don't often notice mine any more

Thanks for the kind words. I’m trying not to worry and get on with things but it’s so hard when it’s constantly in my vision. Even when I try to forget about it when I’m talking to someone, I find myself rubbing my eye lid to subconsciously remove what’s in my eye.

The little floaters I have i my other eye don’t bother me at all!

Yes I got one all of a sudden a few months ago, much much bigger than any other floater I've ever had and quite distressing. It's definitely reduced in size as time has gone on though which is a relief

It's always the anxious people that 'see' eye floaters. I don't mean that rudely but it's a fact

It's easier said than done, but stop looking for it. If I want to see mine, I just look at a blank wall and they all appear! A shower of them!

So I'd advise trying to find a way to ignore it. It'll then go away. Promise. Try and make friends with it or something

Well that is nonsense of course.
Floaters are very common and not related to anxiety. They are more common in short sighted people whose eyeballs are elongated and the retina is pulled. I have always had them and bizarrely they are more visible now that I have had cataracts removed as there is more light getting jn.
I also have a degree of vitreous detachment and have had to make friends with the white spider filling my left eye. I know that in time.my brain will edit it out.
Please do not dismiss floaters as having anything to do with anxiety. Very occasionally they do relate to something that needs treating but you have done all the right things and ruled these out. Your brain will get ysed to the floaters in time.
Please do not worry.

I moved to a bright white office at work and suddenly could see all my floaters all the time and it drove me mad for about a week! When they start to bother me I try to move somewhere darker where I can’t see them as much and it breaks the “cycle” of seeing them. I didn’t know that about shortsighted people being more prone to them but that tracks for me.

@Mischance maybe you should do a search on here. They are very much related to anxiety - if you're an anxious person, you see them more.

Btw - I'm NOT saying anxiety causes them! That would be bloody nonsense. I'm saying that anxious people focus on them and that's a fact

To be fair, I’m very anxious and stressed! The floater is so large; the optician showed me it on the picture they take of the eye ball and it was literally almost the side of the radius of my eye.
I find it hard to believe that I can ever ignore this when I can see it in all lights and not just on white backgrounds/the sky. It doesn’t seem like the other ones I’ve had as long as I can remember. They’re very thin threads or dots, so aren’t seen unless i focus on them, or close my eyes. This is fat and cloudy.

I know I’m not doing myself any favours by closing the other eye actively looking at the floater in detail to check it hasn’t grown, though 😫

I had exactly the same thing a few years ago. I named it my 'blob'. It got so bad that it obscured my vision. I went to an optician who referred me for an eye scan. It was diagnosed as Posterior Vitreous Detachment. No specific treatment but was advised that if I ever felt that there was a curtain closing in my eye it could possibly be retinal detachment.This never happened and my blob slowly disappeared. It was frightening at the time.

Thank you! The optician did the scan of my eye but said it wasn’t that as it was all still intact. Like you, I feel it obscures my vision as it’s more of a cloud than the black thin lines and blobs that are my ‘normal’ eye floaters. As it’s big, things are blurry under it until it moves out the way.
I’m glad it disappeared and hope mine does the same!
The only thing recommended was to drink more water as apparently they move slower when more hydrated?

They are not uncommon. Just do go straight to your nearest eye a@e if you get a shadow/dark patch as that needs surgery. My mum has had significant floaters for over 10 years without further incident. My dp had sudden onset tgen his retina detached 18 months later ... the good news is that he has far better eyesight now than before thanks to prescription corrective lens (he had to have cataract surgery as well as the retina repair) !

Be aware rather than worried and the drs are amazingly skilled if you do need surgery