Causes of "Flashes and Floaters" And When You Should Be Concerned
"Flashes" and "floaters" are internal eye phenomena. Most of the time, there is little to be concerned about. At other times, you should see your optometrist because flashes and floaters signal a more potentially unpleasant problem. Here is a little more information on how to identify these phenomena and when you should be concerned by them.
Flashes
Flashes can resemble the bright, blinding effects of sunlight when you step out of a darkened environment. Flashes can also resemble bolts of lightning, heat waves rising off of asphalt, and stars you see when you have a concussion. Usually, these are short-lived, and your eyes quickly adjust and recover. You should be concerned if the problem persists for more than a couple minutes. This typically indicates a warning for migraines as the least disconcerting problem, cataracts in the early stages as the intermediate issue, and finally cancers of the eye in the advanced level of eye problems. Only your eye doctor can detect what is really happening to your eyes (although a migraine is a good tip-off that you may not have early cataracts or cancer).
Floaters
Floaters can be a fun, weird sort of phenomenon. If you lay in bed during the day and stare at your ceiling, you will see the most floaters pass your field of vision in this position. Professionals, like those at Olympia Eye Clinic, Inc., P.S., know that the vitreous humor, or "eye jelly," tends to get small clumps in it as you get older, and those clumps just float around in the more liquid part of the "jelly." The clumps cast shadows on your retina, which is what allows you to "see" the floaters. Most floaters look like strands or dots and are quite harmless.
When you cannot see the floaters, or when there are so many that they seem to block your vision, that is when you need to be concerned. If you cannot see the floaters, not enough light is entering your eyes, an indication that cataracts are forming. After you have the cataracts addressed, you may see even more floaters than ever before.
However, it just seems that way. In most cases, the floaters may seem to have increased after cataract surgery because you could not see them with the cataracts. Now you can see them again, so it seems as though there are more of them. The other possibility is that the cataracts, which affect the lenses of your eyes and are replaced with artificial lenses, cause changes in pressure in your eyes after the surgery. Changes in pressure cause more floaters to form, but unless you are having pain, inflammation or swelling of your eyes after cataract surgery, you are fine.