eye floaters

turns out i had posteriour vitreous detachment. PVD for short, it is when the vitreous detaches from the retina. virtually everyone goes through PVD as they age and as their vitreous changes and liquifies, so i'm not 100% sure why this has happened to me so early, but oh well. this past month i've been documenting the changes in my vision as my PVD comes to a close, so here they are! disclaimer that my symptoms seem to be milder than other people's who have had PVD. if any of the information is wrong please do tell me.

the start

on the 16th of november i had just woken up and was walking around my house. when i entered a room, the light from the window hit my eye in a specific way and it caused me to see a cluster of about 10 floaters, all "glued" together in one spot. i've occasionally had a couple of floaters on my vision in the past, but i had never seen 10 of them all bunched up like this. this would mark the start of it.

i continued to see floaters, usually less than 10 though, and only when looking at the sky. but whenever i relaxed my eyes, more floaters would become clearer. relaxing my eyes would also make the "blue field entoptic phenomenon" way more noticeable (this is not related to pvd, i just thought it was interesting. the "blue field entoptic phenomenon" is when the white blood cells in the capillaries of your eye are visible on your vision.). by this point all the floaters i was seeing were small, transparent and usually circular in shape.

weiss rings

on the 25th of november i noticed a large transparent semi-circle in the corner of my vision whenever i looked to the side. after checking my vision by closing one eye at a time, i determined that the semi-circle was in my right eye. after a few hours one appeared in my left eye as well. they both started to shift and stretch their shape, becoming more oval-like over the course of the day (with the one in my left eye always being a bit "smaller"). at the same time, they slooowly moved towards the center of my vision, but they stopped pretty soon so they never actually made it to the center. i initially had NO idea what these 2 shapes were, but i later was told by my eye doctor that they're weiss rings. from what i've heard they appear towards the end of a PVD, when the vitreous detaches from the optic nerve, where the vitreous is thicker in constistency. it's basically just a large floater. by this point i was also seeing around 10-15 floaters, but only in specific lighting.

since then, my floaters have mostly settled down, but i do have some new ones that are shaped like thin black strings. there is a particularly annoying one that appeared around the middle of december, which has stayed in the same spot (in the lower-left part of my left eye) without moving at all. even when i move my eyes, it doesn't "lag behind" like other floaters, it smoothly follows the motion of my eyes. (this worried me so i did bring it up at my eye consultation, but everything looked fine. it is most likely a floater that got stuck - unfortunate.)

eye floaters & astigmatism

one thing about floaters that i didn't expect was the way they interact with my astigmatism. the light streaks caused by my astigmatism act as a "background" for my floaters, where i very clearly see dozens of them falling down non-stop, and new ones appearing from the top. they look a bit like a waterfall to me. it's difficult for me to describe their motion, but i've included a picture that is hopefully clear enough.

this was a shorter blog post, partly an excuse to have a place to dump the photos i've edited over the course of the last month. thanks for reading!