Thousands of Eve Floaters

[Amby333]

Why would I suddenly start having thousands of very tiny eye floaters like dots when I used to have only about a dozen larger ones? This happened all at one time just today and it seems really strange to me and I'm kind of worried.

[Reasercher]

True, true, true...go to ophthalmologist ASAP! Though, I went to ER 7 at night as I had the same thing as you they turned into black dotted streaks after 12 hours and could then hardly see by then . ER sent me to ophthalmologist by midnight. He said I had two tears but not a retinal detatchment and he phone the Ivery Eye Institute in London Ontario Canada about 3 hours drive away for a few hours late at 7 A.M.

By 3 that same afternoon I had a Vitrectomy  (surgery to remove some or all of the vitreous humor...the gel from the eye). Believe it or not it was very ,very easy and painless! They cut a small slit in the white of yur eye and put a camera and laser in to laser close the tears. I actually had 6 tears. They do it under freezing only and not a general anesthetic.

BUT it was TOTALLY painless ( and I'm a BIG suck) except for one minute when they make your eye stay open in some contraption ( the nurse said I'd hate the surgeon for two minutes lol ) but even that was quite easy once I knew it would only be a minute or two. They also give you an I.V. with something that soothes your nerves...must be Valium or something. By that time the freezing and I.V. had me totally relaxed and totally pain free extremely quickly. The whole surgery took about 15 minutes. Took all the gel out, lasered the 6 tears close and put a bubble in as a pressure type bandage inside the eye...it dissolves in 4-6 days naturally. I would do it again in a heart beat...it was very,very easy and it was just the idea of it that worried the heck out of me. I actually wished he could do the other eye as it too has had floaters for a long time but surgeon said that eye was fine ( had several longer stringy black floaters and several dots that have annoyed me for years and I'm an an artist who paints miniatures!). The surgery was very easy and the most annoying thing was having to look down at my feet for 5 to 7 days as the bubble  pressure bandage inside the eye has to float to the top all the time plus I could not sleep on my stomach as told to ( I'm a female lol) and for comfort I finally slept with my head on the kitchen table, forehead on a pillow, blanket around me, sounds awful but was very comfortable once I got into the right position lol...

.This surgery sounds terrible but is very, very easy on the patient.  Your eye does look awful after ( though it feels absolutely normal ( but that's a good time to get all the sympathy you  can get lol). After 10 days your eye looks totally normal. You also take two types of eye drops after surgery, one a precautionary antibacterial and the other an anti-inflammatory for about 10 days.  

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

This is usually a sign of blood often due to a retinal tear.  See an ophthalmologist ASAP.  It is a waste of time to go to the ER.

Dr. O.