What causes eye floaters?

Eye floaters can affect our vision health. In many cases, they are caused by vitreous degeneration. In traditional Chinese medicine, it is believed that they are caused by liver, gallbladder and kidney diseases. Insufficient liver and kidney essence and blood or excessive blood loss may cause these symptoms.

1. Reasons

Floaters are a subjective symptom of vitreous opacities, which are generally caused by vitreous degeneration. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that this disease is mostly caused by lesions of the liver, gallbladder, and kidney meridians. Insufficiency of liver and kidney essence and blood, lack of source of spirit water; or excessive blood loss, blood deficiency generating heat; or sadness, depression, and anger, liver fire rising; or febrile disease damaging yin, depletion of true yin; or blood heat running wildly, blood stasis inside the body; or damp heat accumulating, turbid qi rising; or phlegm and dampness being trapped inside the body, obstruction of the clear orifices, etc., are common symptoms. Floaters are also likely to occur after a serious illness.

2. Clinical manifestations

Fundus images of patients with floaters Some people go to an ophthalmologist and claim that they often see black spots shaking in front of their eyes, sometimes flashing past their eyelids and sometimes gathering together without dispersing. The shape also changes from time to time. Patients are more likely to notice its presence when looking at brighter backgrounds such as the blue sky and white walls. The characteristic of this disease is that black spots appear in front of the patient's eyes, flying around with the rotation of the eyeballs, and can never be caught or hit, just like flying mosquitoes. It is medically called floaters.

Floaters are a very special and common eye disease, and most middle-aged and elderly people over 40 years old have this symptom. Patients with high myopia, those who have undergone cataract surgery, and other conditions such as intraocular inflammation or retinal vascular disease may also develop this disease.

3. Symptom Classification Physiological

Physiological floaters are called "good mosquitoes" and generally do not require treatment. As long as you get proper rest, avoid fatigue, work and rest regularly, take a 5 to 10 minute break every hour after long periods of eye use, do not use the computer for too long, and stop using it when you feel unwell, you will feel better.

The main symptoms of physiological floaters are one or two black shadows flying in front of the eyes, sometimes visible and sometimes not. When people are very tired, they will feel the movement of mosquitoes is particularly obvious. When older people have floaters, the feeling will be stronger and more obvious than that of middle-aged people.