Have you had Posterior Vitreous Detachment? Well....it sucks

Sing it sister. Mine actually took over a year to clear too. Best of luck to you. I hope yours clears faster.

I had it post cataract surgery at 51. After the surgery, my surgeon said it wasn’t a matter of it would happen, but when. I had severe myopia and that weird eye shape isn’t corrected with IOL surgery.

I’m about 6 months out from the detachment and it’s finally getting better. With the myopia, I’m also at an increased risk for a retinal detachment, which is really scary.

I’m sorry. I had it happen eight years ago. Mine was pretty bad. Tore my retina in two places which both had to be repaired by laser. It gave me a HUGE floater. It was so big that whenever a tech did imaging, they’d look in my eye, look at my chart, look at my eye again, and tell me “That’s a really big floater!” No shit. I was living with what looked like a jellyfish bouncing around my eye like a pinball. A couple of weeks later, my vision became distorted in that eye. Straight lines looked wavy. I developed a membrane of scar tissue over my retina. I had to have surgery (vitrectomy) to remove it. Fast forward a few years, I developed cataracts as a side effect of that surgery and had to have both eyes done because my vision was too compromised in the PVD eye do just do that one.

Six months later, the morning of my follow up with the cataract surgeon, I had a PVD in my other eye. Sent to a retina specialist and they found retinal tears again. This time they were repaired by cryotherapy. (Different state, different doctor.) For a week, the entire white of my eye was blood red from the shot they gave me to numb the eyeball. Then a few months after that, another piece of vitreous in that same eye detached and I had to go through it all over again. I still have floaters in that eye. Nothing like the first eye though.

It’s been a couple of years now and I think I’m in the clear.🤞 Oh, and I just turned 50. I was pretty young for all of this to happen.

Good luck to you. I hope your experience is much less eventful than mine!

OP, sorry you're dealing with this. Any of you who've had this condition, were your driving privileges restricted? My boss has been diagnosed with this yet he continues to drive despite his wife's objections.

Yes, I didn't know that they eventually got better. Seems like mine hasn't.

Yes, I have had vitreous detachments in both eyes. The first was my left eye when I was 39 -- I had a newborn daughter and a bad cold and this came from a severe coughing fit! I was so worried it was a retinal detachment because I saw star shapes and flashes of light. So scared. But when I found out there was nothing they could do about the massive amount of floaters I cried. It was SO BAD at first and took several months to be slightly better.


My right eye happened when I was 44. Nothing precipitated it. I just thought I saw a big black spider walk across the floor and then some flashing. The symptoms for that eye were more mild, thankfully. I still have floaters, though, which isn't great but I can live with it. 

I've had it for several months and it makes me batshit crazy!  It's like I have a windshield wiper in my right eye.  Sometimes it's so bad that I'd happily gouge my own eye out to make it stop.  So yeah, I agree...it totally sucks!!

I don't believe the detachment actually heals.  As I understand it, your brain can sometimes adjust to the presence of the detachment/floater and "learns" to ignore it (for lack of a better term).  At least this is how my eye doctor explained it to me.  Maybe someone here has a better explanation.

Just FYI, there is a treatment available. I had a vitrectomy- a replacement of the vitreous fluid in my eyeball. Got rid of all the floaters.