Posterior Vitreous Detachment — update

A surprising number of people have found my blog when searching for ‘posterior vitreous detachment’, after I wrote about what had happened to me. So I thought I would do an update. I’ll tell you up front that it is relatively good news.

The experience made me realise how much I value my eyesight and how much of my life involves using my eyes. Also, I discovered the extent to which I depend on a PC for so many things these days.

A day or two after the PVD first happened in my right eye, I began to realise that when the floater darted across my eye, and there was a light source to the front of me, the floater appeared grey and ‘back-lit’, creating a much worse effect. Almost like a blob of cotton wool in front of my eye. There seemed to be slightly less contrast in my right eye, so my eyes felt kind of ‘unbalanced’.

I found it incredibly hard to use a computer screen. I was getting a kind of ‘flare’ effect in my right eye, which was uncomfortable and almost like looking into a car headlamp. Both eyes were sore and I was getting headaches (unusual). I even went out and bought a new screen.

Then I realised that my left eye wasn’t focusing too well on close distances. A bit weird, as this wasn’t the eye with the posterior vitreous detachment. But it had probably been like that before, and became noticeable due to my right eye being less effective. This was probably the cause of the headaches.

Although the whole situation was really quite disabling and I found it almost impossible to work, I decided I wasn’t going to let this get me depressed. It was just something that my body had decided to do. It was part of me.

The only time I really thought ‘oh God I can’t put up with this’ was one afternoon when I was waiting at the checkout in a shop. A particular set of circumstances made the grey floater highly visible: I was looking towards the windows, the sun was shining outside and bright downlighters were beaming onto me.

Ten days after the PVD first happened, on Wednesday, I woke up and suddenly everything seemed much better. I found that the computer screen didn’t hurt my eyes anymore. I think I’d had some temporary sensitivity to bright light. I believe it was this sensitivity that made the floater seem much worse as it crossed my eye. Almost like a flash of light.

The floater seems to have become much less noticeable over the weeks. Probably my brain has started to ignore it, as the doctor said it would. I had my eyes tested. It turned out that the prescription for my left eye needed to be reduced slightly. Looking into my right eye, the optician said she could see three different floaters. Having the correct spectacles has improved matters.

So, the current situation is that I still see the floaters slightly, they haven’t gone away, but they are much less of a problem. They seem to vary a little from day-to-day.

I believe the slight loss of contrast in my eye is because these out-of-focus grey floaters are diffusing the light slightly. This is only noticeable if I look at a bright white screen. I’m not sure if it will improve.

They move in particular ways. For instance, I know that if I look down and then up, moving my head in a certain direction, the grey floater will move from the bottom of my eye, to the centre and then disappear. But they are not preventing me from leading a normal life or even annoying me very much now. Most of the time I’m not really aware of them. I can work as usual.

Update: 29 July 2007

A few more notes for any of you who are going through the same thing. Several months later, the floater is still there but I hardly notice it. It’s hard to say if it is less prominent or whether my brain has ‘tuned out’. I can go for days and not think about it at all.

I notice the floater mainly outdoors in sunny weather and, for some reason, if I’m extremely tired just before bed watching TV and something white appears on screen.

I’ve mainly been wearing spectacles. I’m getting some more contact lenses next week and it’ll be interesting to see how it is then. I have the feeling that the spectacle frame may help in hiding the floater at the side of my vision.

Update: 17 December 2007

I only occasionally notice the floater now. Maybe once every couple of days. I don’t notice the contrast thing. When it first happened the floater appeared as a dense, black spidery thing that darted around my field of vision. Now it’s more like a few vague threads from a spider’s web.