With the dilation, your optometrist can evaluate the health at the back of the eye entirely. Your local optometrist would put some dilating eye drops to enlarge your pupils. Having your eyes examined with your local optometrist is your best bet to provide you with the best treatment available to you. Your GP may not have the equipment to adequately examine your eyes to determine the severity of the condition. Your local optometrist would be able to organise an emergency referral to the ophthalmology department in the hospital should urgent treatment be required. In either case, should you be unfortunate enough to have a retinal detachment, the wait-time at your GP’s office or the Emergency Department at your local hospital would unnecessarily delay your treatment. You could go to your GP or present yourself to an emergency department. One of the causes of significant flashes or floaters is a retinal detachment, which is an ocular emergency and needed to be treated promptly to avoid further vision loss. ![]() Organise an appointment your local optometrist. It is imperative to have your eyes thoroughly examined by your optometrist prompt should you experience sudden flashes or floaters. This will help your optometrist to diagnose the issue by doing specified tests accurately. It is essential to take accurate notes on how these floaters come about. Regarding the dark spots, do they move when you move your head? Could you count how many floaters you could see? Are the sizes of these floaters changing? Are you seeing more and more of these floaters as time goes by? Are you experiencing these flashes or floaters in both eyes? Do you notice these flashes more so at night? How often do these flashes occur? How many times do you see it during the day? Take notice how long they last and how frequent it is occurring. Before you do so, you should pay attention to below ĭocument Your Symptoms. Write down when you first noticed these dark spots or flashes. When you first experience these flashes and floaters, a prompt appointment to see your eye care professional is paramount. ![]() What to Do When You See these “Flashes” or ” Floaters” In either scenario, if you experience these flashes or floaters, it is essential to have your symptoms evaluated by your optometrist promptly. Patients involved in motor vehicle accidents such as whiplash injuries can cause the vitreous to detach prematurely, causing flashes and floaters. Sudden head movements can cause flashing lights, often associated with extreme sports such as bungy jumping and skydiving. Diseases which causes a structural change of the eyeball such as pathological myopia, systemic ailments such as Stickler’s syndrome, diabetes or merely age-related changes can cause floaters to appear prematurely. There might be a small degree of cellular debris within the vitreous, causing these dark spots. What causes you to experience “Flashes” or “Floaters.” As it floats around, the shadow follows, and the patient sees this as a dark spot wandering within their vision. These clumps then float within the rest of the vitreous, casting a shadow on the retina. When this happens, the collagen fibres, which makes up the vitreous, starts to condense or clump together. This action results in the patient to experience a “flash” of light in the corner of their vision.Īs time goes by, the vitreous would eventually detach from the retinal interface. Occasionally, during sudden movements such as quick brisk head turns, the vitreous “tugs” or pulls on the retina. The vitreous of the eye is attached to the retina. The vitreous gives the eyeball its shape (like air in your tyres). These brief flickering bright lights are known as “flashes.” Our eyeballs are filled with a viscous jelly-like substance called the vitreous. Others also describe this phenomenon as a thunderbolt on a dark stormy day that only lasts a few seconds, but it frequently occurs throughout the day. Most of our patients describe these flashes like a bright camera flash when the photographer is taking a photo of you. It is becoming more and more annoying as it starts to affect your concentration and sometimes, vision. You can’t really pinpoint what it is, but the flickering gets brighter and more frequent. ![]() Occasionally you noticed something flickering on the side of your vision. In this week’s newsletter, we look at some reasons and causes of these flashing lights or dark spots floating across your vision, and what you should do when this occurs. At Capital Eye, your local optometrist in Canberra, we routinely see patients that experience “flashes” or “floaters” in their vision that they haven’t seen in the past.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |