Why The Worst Is Not Yet Over Due To Floaters After Cataract Surgery

So you think the worst is over. With the cataract surgery over and done with, what else can a patient be anxious about?

Is your vision full of drifting clouds, cobwebs and threads? These are floaters and their presence is not comforting especially after the cataract survery. Floaters are normal but not if their appearance happen after cataract extraction as this could be a symptom of post op complications like PVD or posterior vitreous detachment.

What are floaters?

Floaters might appear to drift in one’s vision like clouds, threads and cobwebs. They are found in the fluid or vitreous gel-like material within the eye and they are specks of protein deposited there. These bits and pieces are proteins from the gel-like vitreous humor of the eyes coming from the retina. The ones that move towards the central and more watery part of the vitreous are the ones that become floaters. The shadows are cast into the retina as light enters the eye.

Floaters normally appear with aging. More serious complications like retinal tear or worse like PVD, are probably indicated when these floaters start showing up.

To be able to treat PVD, early diagnosis is important. Common treatments used by ophthalmologists or eye doctors are laser surgery and cryopexy. Laser surgery works to seal the tears and small holes of the posterior vitreous of the retina in a principle like that of welding. Cryopexy does the same but uses freezing technique. When the retinal tear can’t be reached by laser, the latter treatment method is preferred.

When the floaters after cataract surgery is accompanied by sudden appearance of flashes it may mean PVD which is considered as an emergency. This situation may call for a surgery that is rarely done, which involves the removal of the vitreous entirely from the eye or vitrectomy.

Other eye problems may also be associated with floaters such as inflammation, diabetic vitreopathy, eye infections to name a few.