View Full Version : Really worried about my eye - floaters, weakness, light sensitivity
Hi, everyone, I know there was a thread about 'floaters' about a week ago but I had to write something here b/c I am getting anxious about my left eye. Is it normal to get floaters in one eye for a period of time, say a few weeks and then have them fade away again? This has happened to me twice over two years in my left eye and both times with a feeling of weakness in that eye, like only that eye is tired and it feels a little blurry and sensitive to light (like little halos are around things relfecting light)?
Please let me know if this has happened to you and if it turned out to be anything b/c when I Google it (I know, I know) I only get glaucoma and retinal detachment which totally freaks me out that I might be headed into eye surgery and/or potential blindness in the near future. I know I have to go see an opthalmologist for a check-up but if I call tomorrow morning I may not get an actual appt. for days or weeks and I want not to worry about it every minute of every hour of every day until then.... Thanks so much if you can help.
Lucia_1989
16-08-09, 13:02
Hello there.
I have suffered with anxiety for years now, and i have this too.
My eyes are especially sensitive to light i find myself squinting half the time and sometimes i find that my vision is very blurry. I too get the eye floaters off and on but i have had them for years and have been to get my eyes tested and have perfect vision. so im sure this is all down to anxiety.
I hope this helps feel free to private message me.
take care.
Love Lucia
xxxx
Thank you, Lucia, do you ever feel that just one of your eyes is 'tired'? To me this is unnerving - just one and not both at the same time.
Hello! I am new to this site, and I have been suffering from terrible debilitating health related anxiety for the past 2 years. I have suffered from a variety of symptoms both physical (palpitations, sweating etc) and emotional (such a constant and never ending fear that I have some dreadful disease), but the symptoms that have frightened me the most are to do with my eyes and the strange symptoms I have been having...
First of all I started getting floaters, not very big and not all that often, but enough to scare me completely!! However once I saw my opthamologist who explained to me exactly what they were (and that my retina was perfectly intact!) I now notice them less and less and they do not bother me at all anymore.
Next, I started to notice stange colours and shapes (mostly pale blue "blobs") when i stare at a blank white wall. Interestingly this only happened when I was at work, under harsh fluorescent lighting, and only when I was extremely anxious and stressed (even more so than usual!) - I literally have to "look" for these shapes before I see them!! Again both my dr and eye dr thought this was anxiety related, and since my last eye exam a month ago I have hardly noticed these shapes at all. I was also told that this could be due to occular migranes as harsh lighting can be a trigger?
Finally the latest symptom that is causing me extreme worry and panic occurs when I focus on a patterned design (eg spots or stripes on clothes). Once I have focused on the design for a few seconds I see other "images" of the pattern jumping around on the fabric. Its very difficult to describe!! Again I mentioned this to the opthamologist last month who did not seem very concerned and said that this was related to my anxiety and was quite a common problem - but so far I have not found anyone else with this particular symptom!!
I feel that some days I seem to be making real progress with my anxiety, but at other times I just seem to be going backwards and getting worse!! It is on my mind constantly and I feel as if I am constantly on a high state of alert, looking for new symptoms, especially to do with my eyes!!
Emma
xxx
Emma, Thx for sharing. I know what you mean about seeming to make progress over a day or days or even weeks at a time and then something comes up health-wise and I seem to slip backwards again. Eyes are a frustrating area of the body b/c we constantly notice what we are looking at and if it is 'normal'-looking, etc. What you have described sounds like overfixation and anxiety which is of course easy for me to say but I wish I could follow my own advice. When I sit here feeling this weak, blurry eye, which now feels dry and even a bit sting-y, I am convinced SOMETHING must be wrong - esp. since I haven't been to an opthamologist for a check-up in years. I really just can't stop worrying about it. :(
Hi, symptoms like this with your eyes is likely to be something everyday and non-harmful e.g. tension headache, migraine, squinting, tired eyes, tiredness etc. you could have an eye exam if you're concerned as this will locate nearly any problem.
The aching around the eye seems to indicate migraine or migraine-type headache or, more likely, squinting.
Anxiety and medication can create a blurred eyesight effect.
thanks for your advice! yes I completely agree that being anxious about our eyes is particularly distressing as I am constantly looking for abnormalities that are not there!! My Dr described my state of mind as being in a constant state of "hyper vigilence"! I just wish I could ignore all this anxiety and get on with my life but I am really struggling at the moment, especially after feeling so much better before!
I get floaters in my left eye only, don't know why not in my right, i have had them for as long as i can remember but never really noticed them as much until HA kicked in.
I made an appt. with an optometrist for Wednesday morn. Will definitely let you know what the result is. :)
Vision... excellent choice for obsessing, it's my own favorite at the present time :) I'm relieved to hear that someone has this horrible feeling that one eye is constantly a bit tired and sort of lagging a little bit (and hope someone is relieved by hearding that I have it). It's the same eye that I have floaters in. The floaters I don't mind anymore, I even sort of like them since I know what they are, it's those glowing things that I really hate. For me they're pale yellow and sometimes there is like a short tiny flash... I also got visual snow but I think that's a by-effect from trying to look at floaters and trying to look for other stuff: I noticed that when I focus and so to say use my eyes for what they're good for (looking at things) I see perfectly clear. Well, I better go check so I don't have double vision! :)
Hi, everyone, I know there was a thread about 'floaters' about a week ago but I had to write something here b/c I am getting anxious about my left eye. Is it normal to get floaters in one eye for a period of time, say a few weeks and then have them fade away again? This has happened to me twice over two years in my left eye and both times with a feeling of weakness in that eye, like only that eye is tired and it feels a little blurry and sensitive to light (like little halos are around things relfecting light)?
Please let me know if this has happened to you and if it turned out to be anything b/c when I Google it (I know, I know) I only get glaucoma and retinal detachment which totally freaks me out that I might be headed into eye surgery and/or potential blindness in the near future. I know I have to go see an opthalmologist for a check-up but if I call tomorrow morning I may not get an actual appt. for days or weeks and I want not to worry about it every minute of every hour of every day until then.... Thanks so much if you can help.
Hi !
Yes. Exactly. Precisely. I know that it is hard to explain, that is why I know we are alike. The only differences, are that I am a male, and it is my right eye. However, all the same. It is hard to find a fit in here for it, because I think that it IS so difficult to convey what we are seeing. I think others have it the same too, just hard to explain, especially when it is only one eye. It is so hard to explain that to my eye dr. I get it when looking at computer monitor all day at work. Makes that eye, seem "darker" or "darker halo". So hard to explain. My eye actually can "feel" different. I call it "goofy eye". Then, if I wiggle my eye back and forth, the floater gets out of the way, and my vision clears right up.. For a minute or two, at least. Night, lights, etc. show a halo type fog around things. Eye drops help. Sometimes, when I get up in the morning, I get like a skin cell or something over the pupil, and the whole eye sees blurry! Goes right away, if I blink a couple times, or add an eye drop or two. I can see the cell get shoved out if the way. Its like looking through a piece of plastic or something. My wife gets that once in a while too. I think Lot of folks do. It is just that we worry about it! Makes it worse.
Then I get anxious about it, and it makes my shoulders/neck really tight, shoulders up around my ears. :) That makes things even worse. I find that if I relax. and look outside, the daylight blends everything, and I don't notice the floaters so much. I have been tested for pressures, (glaucoma) and eye exam. eye dr. and general dr. neither one were concerned about it. "floaters happen" Now, that I am taking no medications anymore, it seems to be more noticeable. I also was clenching my teeth at night, that I didn't really know, and that made my eyes really sore, with my temples and stuff. But that is not happening anymore, just the dry, blurry, floaty, goofy eye.. :) I am sure that it will go away in time. It has been about 8 months for me. But my vision is perfect, when tested. infact, 40/20, which is very good for being 42 years old. I have never had glasses, and any vision issue is really foreign to me. But I am getting used to it, and the more I do, the less it bothers me. I am pretty sure that you too, will find that you have no serious issues either. If you had it "twice in two years" it had to go away once in two years for it to come back! (that is my logic) So... that should help you in knowing that you are probably causing it, and making it worse by stressing over it. That is what we are good at. Stay calm, get your exam, and when it comes back fine, relax, and go with it. That is what I am doing, and I know, like yours, it will eventually go away again.
oh, and DON'T GOOGLE!
I promised to get back to you after my optometrist's appt. First I only saw an optician on Wed. (perscription HAD changed) and then yesterday finally had a proper appt. with the eye dr. He did all the optomoetrist's checks like looking inside my eye at my retina and checking for glaucoma and dry eyes. First, he established that the floaters are harmless - just piment from the iris (?) that had fallen into the vitreous fluid - something like that - that can get worse or better or stay the same throughout my life - but it's harmless. Apparently it can be caused sometimes by trauma to the body - even something small - like picking up something heavy. But the diagnosis of my weak-feeling eye: it is indeed my weaker eye. My perscription needs to be much stronger and my sore, tired eye is the eye that has grown weaker more quickly. He did all sorts of vision tests with slides and colors and superimposed characters to trick my eyes and to establish that my right eye is much more dominant and doing much more of the work than my left eye. So I need to get a stronger perscription for my glasses and wear them more often. He said b/c of my vision, which is farsighted but '+', means that I do a lot of fine focussing both near and far, and since I haven't been wearing glasses that often, he is surprised that I haven't been suffering from more headaches than I've had. He said he could also tell from the muscles around my eyes that I squint too much. Sensitity to light was also related to the left eye feeling tired and not wanting to focus so the stigmatism showed halos of light on that side. So I definitely have to wear glasses when driving at night. Well, this has taken a load off my mind - knowing that all I have to do is wear my glasses correctly and that nothing is wrong inside of my eye. I hope this helps someone suffering like me. :)
:unsure:
Vision... excellent choice for obsessing, it's my own favorite at the present time :) I'm relieved to hear that someone has this horrible feeling that one eye is constantly a bit tired and sort of lagging a little bit (and hope someone is relieved by hearding that I have it). It's the same eye that I have floaters in. The floaters I don't mind anymore, I even sort of like them since I know what they are, it's those glowing things that I really hate. For me they're pale yellow and sometimes there is like a short tiny flash... I also got visual snow but I think that's a by-effect from trying to look at floaters and trying to look for other stuff: I noticed that when I focus and so to say use my eyes for what they're good for (looking at things) I see perfectly clear. Well, I better go check so I don't have double vision! :)
WELL I HAVE HURD ABOUT FLOATERS YA I GOT THOSE TO. BUT I ALSO HURD WHEN U GOT FLOATERS AND FLASHING LIGHTS U GOT A TEAR IN THE RETNA. YA I GET THOSE TO. I NEED TO GO GET CHECKED. WELL I HOPE THAT HELPED A LITTLE BIT.
Thanks, yes I have checked for that now, twice (at least). I was referred to a neurologist for the yellow blobs, that are really irritating, but I suspect they're also anxiety related. They almost freaked me out yesterday when I was running since I had to look at an overcast bright sky with naked twigs and branches for long periods of time. It's especially black against white background that makes the central vision take on a sort of nicotine pale yellow tint. Computer LCD's too.
Floaters are normal. I have had floaters for years and also the strange thing of patterns moving about when you look at them for a while, and slight halos round lights etc. and also strange heavy feelings in only one eye. It is mostly due to anxiety and eye strain. But you are quite right to see an optometrist to rule out anything else, In August I had a sudden really noticeable increase in floaters in my right eye and flashing lights also in my right eye and it turned out to be two holes in my retina which I had laser surgery for. But I stress that I had a massive increase in floaters, so don't worry if you only have the normal amount. Also the thought of laser surgery really freaked me out but it was painless and took about 3 minutes to do, with no side effects whatsoever, so there's no need to fear it at all if it ever becomes necessary.
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