Bilateral Lattice Degeneration and PVD

Hi,

I am a medical student and have been struck with multiple calamities of the eye. I am myope wearing lens with power of -2.5 in both eyes.

I have been diagnosed with bilateral degeneration with atrophical holes. In addition, the number of floaters in my eyes increased about 6 months ago which I ignored. The eye specialist has now diagnosed me with Posterior Vitreous Detachment.

Yesterday while lying in bed in pitch darkness when I was moving my eyes up and down and sideways, I saw two kind of flashes. One was circular, the type you see when you rub your eyes. I believe its called phosphenes? But I saw them just by looking sideways? Is it normal?

In addition I saw a new set of flashes which were brighter and yellow in color, like the light from incandescent bulbs. It was a streak of flash that lasted not more than 1 second while I looked sideway. Is it due to my detached vitreous tugging on to the retina? or these are also phosphenes?

Help.

[Sandy Feldman, MD, MS]

Dear RuinedMedStudent,

I would recommend that you seek the care of your eyeMD to determine whether these new flashes are associated with any tears or are just associated with the vitreous detachment.


Dr. Feldman

Sandy T. Feldman, M.D., M.S.
ClearView Eye and Laser Medical Center
San Diego, California