Flashers

For approximately 12 to 18 months I've been having two distinct types of flashes of light in my eyes. The first kind is what I believe are called "flashers" ... looks like little skyrockets bursting in my eyes, about the size of the head of a pin. They occur predominantly in my right eye, and at their peak probably averaged out to one flash every day or two ; sometimes more often, sometimes less. These actually seem to be decreasing in frequency. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them, they can even happen with my eyes closed, but they do only pop up towards the edges of my vision.

Then there's a second kind of flash of light that seems to occur across my entire field of view in both eyes simultaneously. My vision isn't obscured or distorted when it happens. It's like someone quickly turns on then off a small spotlight or a lamp just behind my head, and whatever I'm looking at is brightened for a fraction of a second. While I can't do it at will, it seems only to happen when I quickly move my eyes, say if I looked up suddenly at something or I shift my eyes to glance at something or someone at my side. This again maybe occurs every other day or so on average.

I've been to an eye doc once or twice since these symptoms started but for a recurring corneal abrasion in my right eye, and neither time did I remember to mention the light flashes. They did peek into my eyes so I'm assuming they would have noticed something seriously amiss.

Anyway, I have another appointment in a couple weeks, but I guess I'm curious what the odds are that this will be anything serious? I've read about PVD but at 34 I'm apparently young to have that. I have no other diagnosed health problems, and other than the corneal abrasion thing, never any other eye problems. Eyesight was a little bit worse than 20/20 six months ago (not worth correcting, they said) and doesn't seem to have deteriorated any since. Not looking for a diagnosis, just wondering if I should fret at all.

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

I recommend you go ahead and make an appointment with an ophthalmologist that is a retinal specialist.  Your symptoms are not normal and could suggest some degeneration of the vitreous or even a retinal tear or an area about to tear.  If the retinal specialist thinks your vitreous and retina look good, then that would be great news. So go ahead and set that appointment up first.  If nothing phyically wrong is found, then we may have to go back to the drawing board to look for more obscure, but much less worrisome causes.

MJK MD

[Sandy Feldman, MD, MS]

Dear dnashifter,

You may be experiencing a posterior vitreous detachment.  As you move your eyes, you are experience traction of the retina which may be causing the second type of flashing.  It is important to seek the care of an eyeMD and have your eyes dilated as retinal tears, holes and detachments may result in a posterior
vitreous detachment.

Dr. Feldman

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

[dnashifter]

For whatever it is worth, my retinas checked out fine. My eye doc mentioned the vitreous detaching as the probable cause of the flashes and that there was no particular reason to worry about it unless other symptoms developed (like suddenly having lots of new floaters pop up) there wasn't any reason to worry. So apparently that's that.