If you get flashes of light in one of your eyes (particularly if middle-aged or older)... [View all]

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Sun Aug 18, 2013, 12:50 PM - Edit history (6)

or a unusually very high number of "floaters," or both, it is good to go to the eye doctor, and if you're going anyway you might as well go quickly. You are probably okay, but if there is a problem it will tend to be time sensitive, if you see what I mean.

(If it's nothing it doesn't much matter when you go. If it is something it matters when you go. You are going only because it might be something, so the logic of the situation suggests not delaying.)

As we age the gel that fills the eye shrinks and pulls away from the retina, which is no big deal in itself, but it sometimes tears the retina. (The separation is almost universal. Injury from it is not.)

That detachment process (it doesn't happen all at once) will usually come with some flashes of light and some floaters without causing noteworthy injury to the retina.

But when there is damage associated with the symptoms, it a kind of damage that is usually easily treatable early and can get much worse if not treated.

(And the younger we get separation the more dangerous because the younger gel is stronger/stickier.)

Doctors can try to isolate a tear with lasers. (much like stopping a run in stocking with nail polish, or setting a back-fire in a forest fire) That laser treatment to limit retinal tears is simple and easy and in-office In a lot of opthalmology practices.

This is a case where advances in technology change the risk assessment profile. I doubt there was much to be done about small tears way back when because the surgery required would be more traumatic than the condition. But today the pay-off of better safe than sorry is potentially high.

If a tear remains untreated, not only can it tear more, but fluid can get behind it and cause retinal detachment (think of wallpaper peeling from the wall) which can lead to blindness in the eye quickly, and requires a significant surgery, and is a big mess. And the detachment doesn't necessarily "flash" as much as the tear did when it tore, so it may even seem like the problem went away.

So you could wait to see if the problem went away, and have it seem to be getting better, and then lose a chunk of vision like bam.

Just one of those things one always hears all the time as good advice that is for real true. Symptoms of retinal tears should be taken seriously, so take bright flashes of light in your vision seriously, even though they will frequently being gel pulling away without injury.

It's a nuisance because, like so many things, one will encounter a symptom more often than the condition. There are "false positives" throughout life.

But as with any condition where early detection can make a large difference in end result, better safe than sorry.


(There is another type of striking flashes in the eye caused by opthalmic migraine that usually appears to be in both eyes simultaneously usually bright, linear, geometric and colorful. This is something that actually happens in the brain itself creating a false vision, not fed through the mechanics of the eyes at all. Having had both types, I was able to tell the retina kind from the migraine kind readily... you can tell it's in one eye.)