Eyefloaters

[KvickFlygarn87]

What are they, do they serve a purpose or are they just bugs in the matrix?

[Raven.]

What are they, do they serve a purpose or are they just bugs in the matrix?

Depends. Under normal conditions, they are just loose proteins called Collagens floating around. Perfectly normal and can safely be dismissed as a bug in the matrix.

With that being said, a sudden large amount of floaters in combination with Glaucoma, is not good. From my experience with family and friend who have eye conditions, a sudden large amount of floaters is one of the early signs of more serious eye conditions, an example of which is a condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa (basically imagine the back of your eyes falling apart and shutting down as you age).

Of course, I'm not a doctor, and I'm only speaking from experience.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Raven.

[Nuke]

ive got 2 big ones on my good eye. i am convinced both were caused by no-budget metalworking (safety glasses are too expensive). as a result i hate reading things with white backgrounds, like this forum.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Alright, thanks to you two!

[MC.STEEL]

The fluid in your eye is also completely sealed off,if i remember correctly.And as Raven. posted before me it is full of collagen strands that tend to clump up and become the stuff you see, but you only see them when they are close enough to cast a shadow on your retina.As you age some of them defect or something(i honestly dont remember) and they become these dark colored floaters that tend to fall down the bottom of your eye.

[Uzric]

Check "Hyaloid artery" on Wikipedia too.

Edited December 13, 2014 by Uzric

[Motokid600]

They suck. Everytime I look into the sky I see a few floating by... Rhyme not intended.

[Helix935]

last i checked weren't floaters just normal detached tissue/flesh that gets in the eye and slowly dissolves as it is being broken down and flushed back into the bloodstream?

[plausse]

To put things simply, the inside of your eye is filled with clear jelly called the vitreous humour. Floaters is anything non transparent either in or behind that jelly.

Most common in young people is floaters that look like a cell or a worm (like a picture of an amoeba in a biology text book). They are not in the humour itself, but between it and the retina in a little sack called a bursa. That is a variation of normality and usually dissappears as people get older..

Other more diffuse floaters (sometimes black) are in the humour. They can be strands of jelly that have solidified (pretty harmless), or if a floater is big and black sweeping in from the side, that could be the retina itself that is detatching (not harmless at all)..

As always the best thing is to read up on it, and not trust some crazy person on a forum. The wikipedia article is pretty factual but yet readable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater

A slightly more medicalised explanation for anyone who is keen can be found here:

https://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?ID=141230135

*disclaimer* If you feel worried or your vision suddenly changes you should of course see a doctor.. *disclaimer*

EDIT: sorry for wall of text

Edited April 8, 2014 by plausse
apology