View Full Version : worried about retinal detachment again
A few months ago I started noticing more floaters than usual. I also saw a couple of flashes in my peripheral vision. I made an appointment with my optometrist, who did a dilated eye exam and said everything looked fine.
Shortly after the exam, I started noticing other flashes- they typically happen in the shower, which makes me think it could be a blood pressure issue, but they also only happen when I move my eyes upwards suddenly, which makes me think it's an eye problem. It seems to be in both eyes simultaneously. The flash is quite large, blue or black, and appears as a horizontal blob in the center or lower-center of my vision, taking up a significant portion of my visual field but only lasting a second at a time. These flashes tend to happen several times per shower and have happened once or twice in other settings.
So I've made an appointment with an ophthalmologist. The problem is that now I'm even more worried about the cost than I am about retinal tears. The office can't give me a definite answer about how much the appointment will cost but estimated 400 to 500 dollars. If that's really all it is, and my insurance covers it, then I won't have to pay anything because my employer pays for the first $500 of my deductible. But I'm concerned that insurance won't cover it because I had the same sort of eye exam with my optometrist in December (I was on a different insurance then, if it matters). I'm worried that for some reason it'll end up costing thousands of dollars (i.e. all of my money). I really wish doctors could give a firm price for an appointment ahead of time. I'm also wondering if it could cost more b/c they're squeezing me in (they're scheduling in June for routine appointments but gave me an appointment on Friday because of my symptoms) and because I'm seeing a corneal specialist (I didn't ask for any particular doctor but I guess he's who's available).
I'm wondering if I should cancel the appointment and just go back to my optometrist ($80) to ask specifically about the flashes I've been seeing when showering. The problem is that the flashes are only half of my concern- I'm also just concerned that the optometrist could've missed something, so if I see him again that concern will persist even if he can explain the shower flashes.
As to the likelihood of my developing retinal tears/ eventual retinal detachment(s), I'm 25 and haven't had any head trauma but am severely nearsighted, so it's a real possibility.
Any thoughts you guys may have about all of this would be appreciated.
Edit: When rereading the post, I realized it may not be clear why I'm posting this in a HA forum. I have a long history of HA, which makes it difficult for me to know how seriously to take my own concerns. It can also, as you all know, cause hyper-awareness of symptoms. Have I always had these shower flashes but didn't notice them until after I'd read a lot online about retinal detachment? Maybe. Maybe not. Hard to know. Would they bother someone without HA? No idea.
Firstly, what you're experiencing in the shower aren't flashes. They are pressure phosphenes from eye movement. When you look up hard like that, the retina is tugged, generating the phosphene. They are normal, you are just more observant than most. You can see them better in the shower, because the walls are likely a light, uniform colour and there are few other distractions. You will probably notice something similar if you move your eyes hard left or right too.
I understand your fear completely because I have a different eye issue going on at the moment, and I too saw an optometrist for it initially and went through the whole doubt cycle. My ophthalmologist appointment is next week and I am scared af.
Regarding your question about cost, I don't know where you're located but I'm in CA and optometrists are ophthalmologists are covered by two different insurers. One is for vision/glasses, the latter falls under my regular health insurance. And yes, if they see you on an emergency basis, it will cost more usually. They can't tell you in advance what it will cost, as they don't know what tests they will have to perform until they examine you.
Hope that helps. Seriously, the eye blobs you are seeing - one in each eye - are a totally normal part of eye physiology. You are just hypervigilant. Our brains normally tune that stuff out. My advice is to stop checking for them. You'll just train your brain to see them all the time.
Thanks for your response! You're right, it makes more sense that they'd be phosphenes. I'm still not sure why I (almost) only see them in the shower- there are other situations where I'm in rooms with light/white walls and few other distractions (and hyperawareness). But this symptom doesn't seem to be consistent with retinal tears, and I did get an eye exam as recently as December.
I've cancelled the ophthalmologist appointment- I really don't want to get in the habit of spending lots of money on appointments that probably aren't necessary. I may go see my optometrist just to be on the safe side, and if he recommends that I see a specialist then I will.
[Insert rant about the expenses of healthcare in the US here]
As a result of all of this worry about retinal tears and detachments, I now have the eye center's 24/7 emergency number saved as a contact in my phone, so I know who to contact if I do experience a retinal detachment at some point.
If anyone has more information (including experiences!) about pressure phosphenes that present in this way, or in similar ways, that would be nice to hear about.
It's not at all consistent with a retinal tear. I have the exact same pressure phosphenes too. The visual disturbance from a detachment would be there 24/7, not just with eye movement. And it would get worse. (I've noticed all my weirdest visual disturbances in the shower, lol)
---------- Post added at 11:44 ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 ----------
There's one in each eye, yes?
doglover1967
15-03-18, 01:58
Third person here with pressure phosphenes! It really freaked me out for some time, until I realized it’s normal and other people have them and mostly just don’t notice them. I’ve noticed them for about 6 years now, because like melfish said, I’m hyper observant. :rolleyes:
melfish- It seems to be in both eyes. It comes and goes so quickly that I've only been able to check (close/cover one eye) a couple of times, but when I've checked it has seemed to be both eyes. And it's in the center of my vision (a horizontal line/blob in the center).
It's comforting that others have pressure phosphenes as well, though of course we each can't know exactly what the other is seeing.
As if I weren't worried enough, I somehow hit myself in the eye early this morning when I was half asleep. It still hurts a little bit hours later. No flashes or new floaters as far as I can tell, though I think a after-image-like-floater (?) that I've had for a while seems a bit bigger.
On the plus side, I've been watching videos on Molly Burke's YouTube channel and it makes me feel a little bit better about the possibility of going blind. I also console myself with the fact that one of my coworkers is blind and all of our work was made accessible to visually impaired people when he was hired a few months ago. So I'd still have a job.
Does the afterimage-like floater NOT float. I mean, does it stay in a fixed position relative to your eye movements?
With the blob in the shower, can you replicate it on demand?
omg, that's so weird. I've been watching her channel too
The afterimage-like floater only appears occasionally... I think it floats? Now that I'm trying to remember, I can't say for sure whether or not it stays in a fixed position relative to my eye movement. It's always in the same general vicinity though- upper left-of-center of my visual field. Is that significant? It only hangs around for... thirty seconds at a time? A minute?
The blob in the shower happens pretty reliably when I move my eyes rapidly (though not *every* time). And as I said, it almost never happens outside of the shower even when I do the same eye movements against white backgrounds.
Nah, not significant. Just curious if it's similar to something else I have. If the visual thing is reproducible, it usually means it's a phosphene or part of the normal eye physiology. Eyes are imperfect, and I think when we are hypervigilant we start to notice all sorts of things. I really started paying attention to my vision after my last migraine aura, for some reason. It coincided with my first eye exam in a decade, and it was all downhill from there ...
I'm once again thinking of making an appointment. The flashes in the shower have gone away- my HA about my eyes calmed down for a few days and maybe I stopped semi-intentionally triggering the shower flashes, because they happen less frequently if at all. BUT. When I was walking from the metro stop to my house yesterday, I saw a couple of flashes (not spots in my peripheral vision, but rather a line in the same place as the shower flash, but yellow light rather than blue) that *weren't* prompted by eye movement. That's scary. It only happened two or three times. Now even my partner, who usually tells me not to worry, thinks I should see an ophthalmologist. But I'm afraid because 1) $500 and 2) what if the ophthalmologist finds a tear, treats it with a laser, and then there's some kind of complication?? Should I just stay away for now and seek emergency treatment if I ever see sure signs of a retinal detachment (unmistakable things like part of my eye actually losing vision)??
Make the ophthalmologist's appointment. Tell them you are experiencing the onset of new flashes and they will get you in soonest. This will be coded on your bill, and insurance will pay. Why do you think insurance will refuse you? Optometrists refer to ophthalmologists all the time, as they are not medical doctors
Well, it's true that I probably wouldn't have to pay for it. My deductible is $1000 and I haven't had any health care since being hired in January, and my employer pays for the first $500 of my deductible. But it would mean that I'd have to pay for the next $500 of health care that I receive. So even if it wouldn't cost money now, it would eventually.
I just made an appointment with my optometrist for next Thursday. I wish he had something available sooner, but he doesn't. The problem is that I don't want to get in the habit of going for medical appointments that aren't necessary- b/c if my HA gets like it has been in the past, it could be lots of appointments all the time. If I ask myself, 'would someone without HA probably go to a doctor for these flashes?', the answer is no (I think?), so I'm trying not to be rash. And the flashes don't strike me as symptoms of retinal tears since they're not in my peripheral vision. I don't know. I'm going to tell my optometrist everything and take his advice re whether or not to see an ophthalmologist. And also spend the next week freaking out. :(
Edit: Am I insufficiently worried? melfish, do you think the fact that these new flashes aren't reproducible means I should think in terms of retinal tears?
---------- Post added at 18:16 ---------- Previous post was at 16:21 ----------
Ok nevermind, I am going to make an ophthalmologist appointment tomorrow, hopefully for Friday. I can't deal.
Flashes associated with retinal detachments are described as blindingly bright, like a camera flash going off, or lightning. This doesn't sound like what you are experiencing. I wrote my reply because I thought you were worried about insurance, not because I thought you needed an urgent appointment
In case anyone is having similar experiences and is curious- the ophthalmologist said everything looks fine. No PVD, even. And she did the scleral depression. She did think it was reasonable for me to come in, though, given my symptoms. She didn't really have an explanation for my flashes (the horizontal ones in the center of my vision) other than vitreous tugs. She didn't think it was a blood pressure thing. I'm glad I went because I haven't been worried about this since. :)
Around this time last year for several months I was worried about my vision because I had a lot of floaters and some flashes. I ended up going to an optometrist and then an ophthalmologist, both of whom said my eyes looked fine. (The ophthalmologist did a scleral depression, so she's seen my whole retina and thought it was fine).
I stopped worrying after that the ophthalmologist appointment and the floaters and flashes pretty much went away once I wasn't focusing on them so much (except for a cluster of floaters in my right eye in the upper right-hand side that's impossible to ignore in bright sunlight).
Last Friday I had bizarre visual disturbances for about 45 minutes (blind spot that made it hard/impossible to read, zigzag line), went to urgent care, found out it was just a migraine with aura without headache. When I covered one eye at a time to make sure it was a brain thing and not an eye thing, the visual disturbances were much more prominent in my left eye but I'm 99% sure I saw something to the side in my right eye too. So I'm pretty sure it was just a regular migraine and not a retinal migraine (which would be much more serious and more worrying).
Since then, though, my anxiety has focused on my vision again. I'm always afraid of having a retinal detachment at any given moment. I do have at least a 1 in 20 lifetime change of having one, since I'm very nearsighted. I'm 25 so I guess if one's coming my way it most likely won't happen yet, but it's certainly possible at any age. I notice a lot of little flashes/colors, after-images, ghost images, visual snow, etc. I feel more sensitive to light in general. I'm pretty sure I'm just noticing these things b/c I'm hypersensitive. But I poked one of my eyes slightly last night which frightened me b/c that can certainly cause retinal detachment.
I'm extra worried because I'm going to be in Bermuda over the holidays (I live in the US), so I would be a flight (albeit a short flight) away from medical care covered by insurance.
I guess I just want reassurance that focusing on vision can lead people to notice things? Or any experiences with retinal detachment? Or migraines with aura (or retinal/ocular migraines, which are distinct, though there's a lot of confusion about the terminology online).
nomorepanic
16-12-18, 00:18
Hi
This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your thread was merged with another of your threads.
Please when posting on similar topics add it onto your previous post rather than starting a new one.
It is nothing personal it is just to make it easier for people to follow your story and to give you advice as a whole.
Ok. I don't think it will get as many responses this way because people will have to catch up on so many previous posts (which aren't wholly relevant- I summed up all the relevant information), but if that's the policy that's the policy.
It paints a better picture of your thought process and shows members the history of the fear. This particular fear has been going on for close to 9 months. That alone dispels it as you would far worse off by now if it were a real physical issue.
Positive thoughts
As if I weren't worried enough, tonight as I was laying in bed reaching for my phone I accidentally hit myself in the eye. ��
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