obsession over eye floaters?

[Butterbur]

Hello! I'm new here.
About a month ago I went to see the optician (I have regular checks as I'm quite short sighted) and he asked about floaters, flashes, halos etc etc.. I said I had floaters, as I have done for as long as I remember, but for some reason since then I've been noticing more and more, I never thought about them before (I'm 16 now). I have a long one with a knot in the middle, a long g shaped one, a sideways 'm', various other chain-y squiggles, some dots, and 2 big vaseline like worms. He did a thorough check of my eyes and said everything looked healthy. For some reason my anxiety has just taken this full on, I look at the sky almost obsessively now, and was even worried I'd damaged my retina after I stared for too long and got a bad after image aha . This morning I noticed that one on the far left, which made me panic, since it's pretty big I'm surprised I haven't noticed it before, although I'm fairly certain I've had it all this time and it's just not usually centre on. I suppose what concerns me is how much worse are they going to get, they're age related too so I haven't hit that part yet.. I know they mean no harm but how can I get my anxiety to chill out? I keep locking myself in the dark, I still see them outside with sunglasses, although the sunglasses do help the anxiety. Half of me thinks it's just my constant erratic eye movement trying to see them that's welled some of them back up haha. Anyone else have similar ones as a teenager? I had a similar worry about an ear problem I have, but as soon as the anxiety lessened about that, this cropped up.

[BrokenGirl]

... He did a thorough check of my eyes and said everything looked healthy. .....

That's all the reassurance you should need.

I went through a phase a few years ago about eye floaters, obsessing about them and convincing myself that they were getting worse and that was a sign of something awful. But it wasn't a sign of anything. The one thing I learned from that experience was that eye floaters appear to get worse when you constantly think about them and worry about them. Most people have them. Sometimes mine are worse than others but it doesn't bother me anymore.


I'm not a teenager (and haven't been for quite a few years now lol) and I can't remember what age I was when I first noticed them.
But you're 16. Please try to not fall down the anxiety rabbit hole. A quick look through this forum and you'll see just how bad it can get. If you can't stop fretting about it, even though you've been checked by a doctor, then nip this in the bud and get some help for your anxiety. The fact that you've gone from an ear problem to an eye problem is typical of how HA works. Don't let the anxiety win, at 16 you have so much ahead of you!!