Floaters
What Are Eye Floaters? You’re seeing specks, spots, threads, or cobweb-like objects in your field of vision, but when you try to focus on them, they never stay still long enough to be visible. What’s going on? You’re experiencing eye floaters, and although these phantom forms can be a bit unnerving at times, you likely have nothing to worry about. Eye floaters generally occur as you age, and are caused by the natural degeneration of your eye’s vitreous, the gel-like substance that helps maintain the round shape of your eyeball. Over time, the vitreous can dissolve, shrink, and liquefy, causing the vitreous to have a stretched or string-like consistency. When this happens, the usually transparent vitreous casts shadows on your retina, ultimately appearing in your vision as an eye floater. Most often, eye floaters affect older individuals, those with diabetes, or people who have undergone cataract surgery. The occasional floater is nothing to worry about, but in some situations,...