Flashers, floaters and retinal migraines are driving me mad.
October 4, 2024 11:25 AM
It’s been many years since we’ve had a question about eye flashers and floaters. Just got back from my eye doctor as I am seeing a lot more floaters, flashers (strands of light that flicker across my vision) and retinal migraines (weird swirls of colour washing over my eyes that feel quite scary) lately.
My eyes are totally fine — thank goodness — and he explained what causes them. I am almost 56 and work on a computer in an intense job — I read (and read) all day as I’m an editor.
But I am going a bit bonkers — all I see at this very moment are floating gobs meandering across my screen and I can’t concentrate. Just this morning I had some weird sparkles that looked like shimmering snowflakes. I am trying it look in the distance every half hour but even remembering to do that is making me anxious.
Doc told me there is no cure for this. But is there anything I can do to help me to ignore them? What about vitamins/supplements? I read online anti-anxiety meds might help? I know thinking about them all day long is not helping!
My eyes are totally fine — thank goodness — and he explained what causes them. I am almost 56 and work on a computer in an intense job — I read (and read) all day as I’m an editor.
But I am going a bit bonkers — all I see at this very moment are floating gobs meandering across my screen and I can’t concentrate. Just this morning I had some weird sparkles that looked like shimmering snowflakes. I am trying it look in the distance every half hour but even remembering to do that is making me anxious.
Doc told me there is no cure for this. But is there anything I can do to help me to ignore them? What about vitamins/supplements? I read online anti-anxiety meds might help? I know thinking about them all day long is not helping!
I've started doing as much of my work as possible off the computer. Part of my job also involves editing, and for copy editing, I print it out and do my first pass the old fashioned way now. I've found that not only does it help my eyes, but I also catch more stuff that I would have missed reading on the screen.
posted by decathecting at 11:48 AM on October 4
posted by decathecting at 11:48 AM on October 4
Sparkles are weird and you should see an ophthalmologist if the eye doc you saw was an optometrist.
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:50 AM on October 4
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:50 AM on October 4
I'm 57 (male), and like you, I spend my days looking at a computer screen and reading and editing text. A few years ago (so your age) I also started having episodes of weird shimmering patterns overtaking my visual field. My wife has them as well. She calls it "plaid eye".
For both of us, these episodes have been diagnosed as ocular migraine. The picture in the linked article is pretty close to what I see but there are other images if you Google it. It's nice to have a diagnosis, I guess, but nobody has given us any clue as to what to do about it, apart from lie down in a dark place until it goes away. Mine usually last about 30 minutes. If that looks like what you're seeing when you see sparkles, maybe talk to a neurologist?
I'm not a doctor and this is in no way medical advice -- just a story about my particular weird brain.
posted by The Bellman at 12:15 PM on October 4
For both of us, these episodes have been diagnosed as ocular migraine. The picture in the linked article is pretty close to what I see but there are other images if you Google it. It's nice to have a diagnosis, I guess, but nobody has given us any clue as to what to do about it, apart from lie down in a dark place until it goes away. Mine usually last about 30 minutes. If that looks like what you're seeing when you see sparkles, maybe talk to a neurologist?
I'm not a doctor and this is in no way medical advice -- just a story about my particular weird brain.
posted by The Bellman at 12:15 PM on October 4
Have you had your blood pressure checked? High BP can contribute to visual effects and may warrant treatment to both reduce BP and minimise damage to eyes.
posted by biffa at 12:17 PM on October 4
posted by biffa at 12:17 PM on October 4
I've had floaters since high school (not many back then, thank goodness.) I'm 72 now, have had vitreous detachment in both eyes. Boy, do I have floaters now!
You do kinda get used to them over now, somewhat. I have a technique of glancing quickly off to one side or another. That will sometimes move the floaters out of your direct line of vision, at least briefly. They're worse when I look down, probably because they drift down. Looking up or straight across is better for seeing clearly.
Much sympathy. I really wise there was something reliable that could be done about these things.
posted by Archer25 at 12:25 PM on October 4
You do kinda get used to them over now, somewhat. I have a technique of glancing quickly off to one side or another. That will sometimes move the floaters out of your direct line of vision, at least briefly. They're worse when I look down, probably because they drift down. Looking up or straight across is better for seeing clearly.
Much sympathy. I really wise there was something reliable that could be done about these things.
posted by Archer25 at 12:25 PM on October 4
I used to get ocular migraines with missing parts in my field of vision quite often. I found that lying down with my eyes closed in complete darkness for 20 mins to an hour was enough to make them go away. Fighting them could lead to 3-5 hours of visual field disturbance.
I only get one or two a year now. Things that might have contributed to this improvement include: starting a beta blocker for a heart defect, quitting smoking, dropping my caffeine to one 12 oz coffee per day, drinking at least 48 oz. of water on top of my other beverage drinking, and getting up at least every 45 mins to do something that isn't staring at a backlit screen for 5-10 mins.
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 12:38 PM on October 4
I only get one or two a year now. Things that might have contributed to this improvement include: starting a beta blocker for a heart defect, quitting smoking, dropping my caffeine to one 12 oz coffee per day, drinking at least 48 oz. of water on top of my other beverage drinking, and getting up at least every 45 mins to do something that isn't staring at a backlit screen for 5-10 mins.
posted by MagnificentVacuum at 12:38 PM on October 4
You might find that bright light will tend to emphasize floaters whereas dimmer light will de-emphasize them. Or in general, you might see more or fewer at different light levels, so it is worth experimenting.
posted by flug at 1:12 PM on October 4
posted by flug at 1:12 PM on October 4
I get ocular migraines, have weird visual disturbances, and am prone to like leftover visual artefacts (like, I'll see a leftover image of a light/shadow for far longer than I should- I don't know the term for this), and my eye doctor has also affirmed that they don't think anything is wrong with my vision.
Approaching this from an eye fatigue perspective, dimming the screen may really help. On my macbook, my go-to's are "Stillcolor" and "Lunar" to reduced brightness/flickering, which is sort of explained here. Truly a rabbit hole, especially if you start reading about PWM sensitivity extensively, but maybe something to try. On my android phone and tablet, I use "Screen Dimmer" which helps with eye fatigue.
I also manage dry eye symptoms, so I use eye drops throughout the day and do a hot compress every night, but that's more for my Meibomian Gland Dysfunction. The hot compress may help with relaxing and giving your eyes a break, though.
CoQ10 as a supplement might be worth considering, as it is suggested for migraineurs and could help with vision.
posted by dearadeline at 1:25 PM on October 4
Approaching this from an eye fatigue perspective, dimming the screen may really help. On my macbook, my go-to's are "Stillcolor" and "Lunar" to reduced brightness/flickering, which is sort of explained here. Truly a rabbit hole, especially if you start reading about PWM sensitivity extensively, but maybe something to try. On my android phone and tablet, I use "Screen Dimmer" which helps with eye fatigue.
I also manage dry eye symptoms, so I use eye drops throughout the day and do a hot compress every night, but that's more for my Meibomian Gland Dysfunction. The hot compress may help with relaxing and giving your eyes a break, though.
CoQ10 as a supplement might be worth considering, as it is suggested for migraineurs and could help with vision.
posted by dearadeline at 1:25 PM on October 4
Migraine glasses with FL-41 tinted lenses have helped me a lot with some similar visual issues. Theraspecs is currently the brand I’ve found that’s relatively reasonably priced. They have a variety of tints optimized for different uses- computer use, etc.
posted by crime online at 4:18 PM on October 4
posted by crime online at 4:18 PM on October 4
Dimmer light can help, because when light is very bright your pupils shrink to tiny little dots. Then one little floater gets in front of that and it's game over.
When the overall light is dimmer, your pupils get big as saucers and no individual floater or speck has a chance of blocking all that light. It's the same principle that allows photographers to shoot obliquely through a chain link fence, with several of the wires close to the lens clearly within the image frame - but they're not visible at all in the final image. They use a big old honking lens and focus it at a distance - so big that the chain link wires are small by comparison (the other trick is they put the fence in the near foreground and focus in the distance - not really something you can do with the floaters).
The other variables you can experiment with are distance of item from your eyes, the exact strength of your reading/computer glasses (I assume if you're having this problem you're at that age where you have basically fixed focus and use glasses of various strengths to achieve focus at near, medium, medium far, and distance), maybe even full sized reading or computer glasses vs bifocals or progressive lenses, and the color of your material or screen.
Just for example, I see floaters galore if I use my computer glasses to view my computer screen at 3-ish feet I can see all kinds of floaters. But if I look at my cell phone at distance of about 5 inches, I don't notice any. (Interestingly the amount of space each takes up in my visual field is about the same.)
If I look at my computer screen with my progressive lenses I see a lot more floaters than when I use full field computer-strength lenses. I can also see more or less floaters by switching to slightly stronger or weaker computer glasses.
Each of these things just slightly changes the focal points of things in ways that enhances or cover the spots.
And I definitely see far, far more floaters on a bright-ish white-ish screen vs very few on a dark screen. (Even most little kids can see floaters when gazing up at the fully lit clear blue sky - sort of the apotheosis of "bad floater hygiene" elements all coming together at once.) You might want to switch all devices to dark mode. But in general, experiment with different colors and brightness levels.
Using different colored lenses in your glasses, and filters or coatings, (blue blockers etc) as others have discussed is along this vein as well. Some of the objective here can be to reduce contrast a little bit overall, so that the variations caused by the floaters don't stand out as sharply.
posted by flug at 4:59 PM on October 4
When the overall light is dimmer, your pupils get big as saucers and no individual floater or speck has a chance of blocking all that light. It's the same principle that allows photographers to shoot obliquely through a chain link fence, with several of the wires close to the lens clearly within the image frame - but they're not visible at all in the final image. They use a big old honking lens and focus it at a distance - so big that the chain link wires are small by comparison (the other trick is they put the fence in the near foreground and focus in the distance - not really something you can do with the floaters).
The other variables you can experiment with are distance of item from your eyes, the exact strength of your reading/computer glasses (I assume if you're having this problem you're at that age where you have basically fixed focus and use glasses of various strengths to achieve focus at near, medium, medium far, and distance), maybe even full sized reading or computer glasses vs bifocals or progressive lenses, and the color of your material or screen.
Just for example, I see floaters galore if I use my computer glasses to view my computer screen at 3-ish feet I can see all kinds of floaters. But if I look at my cell phone at distance of about 5 inches, I don't notice any. (Interestingly the amount of space each takes up in my visual field is about the same.)
If I look at my computer screen with my progressive lenses I see a lot more floaters than when I use full field computer-strength lenses. I can also see more or less floaters by switching to slightly stronger or weaker computer glasses.
Each of these things just slightly changes the focal points of things in ways that enhances or cover the spots.
And I definitely see far, far more floaters on a bright-ish white-ish screen vs very few on a dark screen. (Even most little kids can see floaters when gazing up at the fully lit clear blue sky - sort of the apotheosis of "bad floater hygiene" elements all coming together at once.) You might want to switch all devices to dark mode. But in general, experiment with different colors and brightness levels.
Using different colored lenses in your glasses, and filters or coatings, (blue blockers etc) as others have discussed is along this vein as well. Some of the objective here can be to reduce contrast a little bit overall, so that the variations caused by the floaters don't stand out as sharply.
posted by flug at 4:59 PM on October 4
For visual disturbances in one eye only, try an eyepatch. But some of your symptoms sound like scintillating scotoma, for which I have found bright light plus sunglasses to calm my misfiring neurons quicker than darkness. While I would trust an ophthamologist regarding entoptic phenomena like floaters and phosphenes, I would seek a referral for other types of photopsia whose neurologic origin might respond to preventative medication or acute/abortive treatment. Sorry you're suffering. Hope you can find something that helps.
posted by backwoods at 9:59 PM on October 4
posted by backwoods at 9:59 PM on October 4
Talk to a neurologist. If they are ocular migraines, the new batch of migraine drugs are, at least in my experience, light years better than the older medicines. Both for visuals and for pain, I just take an ubrelvy as soon as I get an inkling of symptoms and it is completely taken care in not too long. It’s like taking tylenol in terms of how easy it is to use (I know ymmv but it’s worth checking out).
posted by umbú at 6:06 AM on October 6
posted by umbú at 6:06 AM on October 6
The game changers for my ocular migraines were:
1. Getting transitions lenses in my glasses/wearing sunglasses. For me bright sunlight after being indoors triggered them.
2. Regular exercise - especially cardio
3. Breaks from the computer
4. Hydrating
5. Ibuprofen (even for the ocular ones; I had used imitrex for full on ones for a while but was able to step down to extra strength capsules. Yo the point above things have improved since.)
6. A food journal. Aspartame in any quantity triggers my migraines, plus cheese, red wine, and a few other things.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:59 AM on October 6
1. Getting transitions lenses in my glasses/wearing sunglasses. For me bright sunlight after being indoors triggered them.
2. Regular exercise - especially cardio
3. Breaks from the computer
4. Hydrating
5. Ibuprofen (even for the ocular ones; I had used imitrex for full on ones for a while but was able to step down to extra strength capsules. Yo the point above things have improved since.)
6. A food journal. Aspartame in any quantity triggers my migraines, plus cheese, red wine, and a few other things.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:59 AM on October 6
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Certain types of light make it more noticeable and moving my eyes a lot also makes them more pronounced. I don't have much trouble reading a regular book or watching TV, but reading on the computer and driving exacerbate it. I see a lot of weird things in the semi-darkness. Other times I hardly notice.
Using eye drop helps a lot. I don't have much in the way of advice, but I can commiserate.
posted by XtineHutch at 11:39 AM on October 4