Have a ‘minor retinal tear’ with blood in the eyeball.
I’ve had emergency laser surgery.
Makes me realise how little I know about the eye.

1) Eye anatomy.
Do the blood vessels extend beyond the edge of the retina?
Can all blood vessels be seen with an ophthalmoscope (the type with chin rest and sliding eyepiece, as opposed to hand-held)?
Can all the retina be seen with the ophthalmoscope?
If light is entering the lens tangent to the eyeball, grazing incidence, at what angle does it pass through the fluid of the eye?
Observing the resulting floaters, the viscosity of the eye fluid appears sometimes gel-like and sometimes water-like. Is that because it’s thixotropic ( ie normally semi-solid but liquefies if stressed)?
If I see something at the extreme right edge of my peripheral vision, is it at the right edge or left edge of my retina?
Do bright flashes indicate that the tear is extending?

2) Laser eye surgery.
Can it be used beyond the edge of the retina?
Is the aim to weld the tear shut or encircle the injury to prevent further ripping?

3) Clearing floaters.
Do floaters clear downwards (gravity) or upwards (buoyancy) or outward (diffusion) or in place (chemical action)?
Since I don’t want floaters to end up adhering to the lens, what’s the best angle to hold my head?
How long does a typical floater take to clear? I ask because I can’t tell whether any particular floater is the result of bleeding in the past few seconds or has been hanging around for 24 hours or more.

4) diy treatment
Fairly obviously I want to avoid high blood pressure and blood thinners if I want the bleeding to stop. Annoyingly, a blood pressure spike tends to happen just as I wake up, can’t do much about that.
Is bed rest a good idea? What is too much bed rest?
Is reading bad? Computer use? TV?
It it better to let my eyes defocus by not wearing glasses?
Are there any eye relaxation exercises, meditations, or biofeedback options?

5) Eye patch.
When, for how long and what type?
I find an eye patch is needed to stop my eye darting about chasing floaters, but if I leave it on for two long then either my other eye gets tired and sore, or the pupil dilates so much that I can still see the biggest floaters despite the eye patch.
Could too much eye patch lead to lazy eye?

You need to ask all those questions of your specialist. Each case is individual. I cannot answer about your case.

I’ll try some of the more general questions.

>>Have a ‘minor retinal tear’ with blood in the eyeball<<

I’m a bit surprised about the description as minor. Small, yes. But all tears have the potential to rip further.

>>Can all the retina be seen with the ophthalmoscope?<<

No, think about it. It is like looking into the inside of a pingpong ball through a rather small hole. They will have indented around the front to push it into view, but you cannot see all of it.

>>Observing the resulting floaters, the viscosity of the eye fluid appears sometimes gel-like and sometimes water-like. Is that because it’s thixotropic ( ie normally semi-solid but liquefies if stressed)?<<

As a baby, the inside of the eye is filled with gel. As a 90 year old it is all fluid. You are in the middle somewhere, so you have a blob of clear gel floating in clear fluid. You get the effects you are noting from the flopping around of the gel and the shadows that casts on the retina.

>>If I see something at the extreme right edge of my peripheral vision, is it at the right edge or left edge of my retina?<<

Generally stuff you localize to your right field of view is on the nasal right retina and/or temporal left retina.

>>Do bright flashes indicate that the tear is extending?<<

Can do. What did your specialist tell you? You should phone them if you have any concerns.

>>2) Laser eye surgery.
Can it be used beyond the edge of the retina?
Is the aim to weld the tear shut or encircle the injury to prevent further ripping?<<

The retina extends right around to the iris at the front. There is no real ‘beyond the edge”
The second part….usually both.

Floaters, ah, floaters. They won’t be gone in a hurry. They tend to dissipate a bit, over months. As the vitreous gel liquefies with age, gravity has an effect….you can wake with them all shook up (think snowdome) and after you stand up they settle. But, of course, you move your eyes around all day, so they can get stirred up again. I’ve never heard of them attaching to the lens.

>>4) diy treatment<<

Follow the advice you were given for your particular case.

>>Could too much eye patch lead to lazy eye?<<

Only if you are under 10 years old and you wear the eyepatch continuously for some months.

Ta buffy. Have thought of further questions, such as:

It’s possible to focus on on a floater, if I focus close up I can even focus within the eyeball which ought to be impossible.

That bit about gel floating within a low viscosity liquid has got me thinking.

Ta buffy. Have thought of further questions, such as:

It’s possible to focus on on a floater, if I focus close up I can even focus within the eyeball which ought to be impossible.

That bit about gel floating within a low viscosity liquid has got me thinking. It explains why the first bleeding event dissipated quickly into a million droplets within an hour or two whereas later events have hung around for well over 24 hours.

Any ideas on why it happened without warning? No trauma was involved. Any way to reduce the chance of something similar happening again?

>>It’s possible to focus on on a floater, if I focus close up I can even focus within the eyeball which ought to be impossible.<<

It is impossible. It’s the wrong side of the focussing stuff.

Retinal detachments sometimes just happen. Idiopathic. Are you a myope (shortsighted)? Myopes have a higher risk, thought to be due to our eyeballs being too long and the retinal attachments being weaker. But it’s not a universal risk for all myopes.

Condolences on your granddad, DA…

buffy said:

>>It’s possible to focus on on a floater, if I focus close up I can even focus within the eyeball which ought to be impossible.<<

It is impossible. It’s the wrong side of the focussing stuff.

Retinal detachments sometimes just happen. Idiopathic. Are you a myope (shortsighted)? Myopes have a higher risk, thought to be due to our eyeballs being too long and the retinal attachments being weaker. But it’s not a universal risk for all myopes.

Have been heavily myope for a long time. Was first person in my primary school to get glasses.

mollwollfumble said:

buffy said:

>>It’s possible to focus on on a floater, if I focus close up I can even focus within the eyeball which ought to be impossible.<<

It is impossible. It’s the wrong side of the focussing stuff.

Retinal detachments sometimes just happen. Idiopathic. Are you a myope (shortsighted)? Myopes have a higher risk, thought to be due to our eyeballs being too long and the retinal attachments being weaker. But it’s not a universal risk for all myopes.

Have been heavily myope for a long time. Was first person in my primary school to get glasses.

There you go then. There is no way of predicting it. You need the other eye very carefully checked too. Sometimes there are risky areas there that can have a touch of laser before anything happens. But really the only advice anyone has is get attention quickly if you get extra floaters or a stunning personal fireworks display that no-one else is getting. Out here in the country I tell people to watch out for lights in the sides of their vision as if someone is spotlighting in a paddock near you but you know no-one is.

buffy said:

>>It’s possible to focus on on a floater, if I focus close up I can even focus within the eyeball which ought to be impossible.<<

It is impossible. It’s the wrong side of the focussing stuff.

Retinal detachments sometimes just happen. Idiopathic. Are you a myope (shortsighted)? Myopes have a higher risk, thought to be due to our eyeballs being too long and the retinal attachments being weaker. But it’s not a universal risk for all myopes.

(Checks definition of word idiopathic). An idiopathy is any disease with unknown pathogenesis or apparently spontaneous origin.

It occurred to me that two possible ways to focus within the eyeball are if the floater is pushed up against the retina (direct shadow), and if the pupil is shut down to be very small (point source of light). I don’t think either of those is responsible, so was wondering what happens if the incoming bright light from the pupil is set to focus either on the floater or half way between the floater and the retina – perhaps?

When I somehow focus on a floater – it looks evil, so I try to avoid doing it.

By the way, I’m getting used to it, there may not have been any new bleeding yesterday (there definitely was the day before) and I’m slowly getting used to not looking at the floaters.

You are not seeing the floater. You are seeing the shadow it casts on the retina. Light coming into your eye makes the shadow from the thicker bits of gel in there. Think about how ripples make shadows on the sand at the beach because the water thickness is bigger at the top of the wave.

Yes, I know my explanations are simplistic. But I deal predominantly with people who have little to no physics or medical/ocular knowledge. I’ve had to find ways to explain.

Eye seems to be getting better, or at least not worse. So I suppose the laser surgery worked.

Patience. Rome was not built in a day. It’s a major mishap.

buffy said:

Patience. Rome was not built in a day. It’s a major mishap.

all roads lead to rome

when in rome do as the romans do

mollwollfumble said:

Eye seems to be getting better, or at least not worse. So I suppose the laser surgery worked.

Excellent news.

Michael V said:

mollwollfumble said:

Eye seems to be getting better, or at least not worse. So I suppose the laser surgery worked.

Excellent news.

Definitely getting better. Very seldom wear an eye mask now.

Pick the odd one out:

Optometrist, ophthalmologist, ophthalmic surgeon, orthoptist, ocularist, optician, optimist, oculist, occultist?