Floaters are a disease? In a

[lost_in_despair]

In an editorial published by Dr. J Sebag in Oct 2011, he asserts that floaters are a disease and it is incumbent upon ophthalmic community to find safe solutions for floater sufferers. By using the words "disease," Dr. Sebag is greatly helping our cause. Unlike cancer, floaters are a disease whose effects are not directly visible to the outsiders. Hence its suffering is minimized and probably not understood. By linking such terminology with the benign name "floaters," Dr. J Sebag has greatly helped the cause of us floater sufferers.

In the mean time, backing his claims by evidence, Dr. J Sebag says that vitrectomy is an effective and safe treatment for floaters.

""In view of the fact that floaters are perceived by patients as a significant health problem, it is incumbent on the medical profession to develop effective and safe methods to cure this disease.3 Despite claims on the Internet and in the lay literature, eye drops have no effect on floaters. Neodymium:yttrium–aluminum–garnet laser treatments also are not effective. Vitrectomy is effective and needs to be safe. An important consideration in this regard is the recent finding that in a study of 695 vitrectomy cases, the risk of RRD was reduced from 4.9% to 1.1% (P = .04) by using small-gauge vitrectomy instrumentation.5 Thus, until pharmacologic vitreolysis is able to meet the demands of patients with floaters, minimally invasive, sutureless vitrectomy using small-gauge instruments without PVD induction seems to be an effective and safe approach.6"

Correspondence
Safety of Vitrectomy for Floaters

Christianne Wa, Jerry Sebag


Available online 21 November 2011.

http://www.sciencedirect....le/pii/S0002939411006830"

[Houman Vosoghi, MD]

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[malog]

Also, if you look at this video ( Goggle it ), it will be evident that someone who sees this way would still have excellent visual acuity, which causes great frustration for the patient since the Dr. cannot understand the complaint.

[malog]

There are a few video simulations of floaters but if you cut and paste  
"2 D Medical animation - Eye Floaters Mouches Volantes "
It will lead to a fair representation of what I saw for 20 years until a PVD. That actually helped since the vitreous moved away from the retina, but that was about 15 years ago and I finally had a vitrectomy in 2009. The problem is known to cause great stress.