These freaking floaters are BAD

[[Sc...]]

I see my floaters ALL.THE.TIME. They are like large dark shadows that stream across my vision when moving my eyes from side to side. They haven't gotten any better 6.5 months later. And they might be getting worse. It looks like dark liquid water swooshing back and forth in my eyes. This has GOT to be a sign that my eyes were indeed severely affected. It's bad y'all.

 

I hope people have success stories on this, bc I've read online that floaters never go away. That's not good news for me who has it this bad.

 

Scrappy

[[Ma...]]

I get these, too, and find that the anxiety makes them worse. I can kind of ignore them until I focus on them and then it's all I can focus on. It's weird, but I remember obsessing about these floaters when I was five years old, and think it was probably at the very beginning of my tendency to be anxious.

[Guest [ba...]]

As I understand it, there is a procedure to drain the eye and remove the floaters, but it's only used when vision is significantly affected.

 

As with all things benzo, you may be over-noticing / overthinking this.  Yes, you probably have some floaters - many of us do - but it may not actually affect your ability to function. 

 

Consider visiting an ophthalmologist if you think it's serious.

[[an...]]

Scrappy88 - Some things to consider

 

1. Ashton specifically says the small muscles in the eye have difficulty coordinating and focusing during withdrawal. I've seen many people list floaters as a symptom. Presumably, it's like when a camera lens is trying to focus on something in the foreground and background and it's confusing the automatic focus. Give your eyes time to recover from withdrawal. I do see people that have come through this say that they don't notice the floaters after withdrawal.

 

2. While it's technically true that the actual floater doesn't go away completely, they do dissolve some over time, so even if you had naturally developed some of these during withdrawal (not from any disease!), they would reduce over time anyway.

 

3. Your brain learns how to edit these out over time. Your benzo brain is a terrible thing to judge something with right now. It is scientifically shown that anxious people lose rational thought capabilities. Give your brain time to recover and handle the floaters in a more natural environment, not a benzo-withdrawal state.

 

Hope this helps!

 

[[al...]]

Your eyes will get used to them with time. I have them for many years and I don't notice them at all now. At first they were very annoying. Surgery is risky and I wouldn't recommend it, but if I were you I would still visit ophtalmologist, just in case so you can be certain it's nothing serious.