How to Get Rid of Eye Floaters Using Natural Home Remedies That Are Easy and Budget Friendly
Plus a doctor explains when you might want to consider surgery
As many as 76 percent of us experience eye floaters, according to findings in the journal Survey of Ophthalmology. And while some of us are barely bothered by the dots, squiggles and specks that drift across our vision, others find eye floaters downright distressing. Fortunately, it’s possible to combat even the most bothersome vision blips. Read on to find out how to get rid of eye floaters.
What are eye floaters and what causes them?
“Consider the eye as a bag of water with a clear window called the cornea in the front, and a clear lens called the crystalline lens behind the iris and the pupil,” says Robert Abel, Jr., MD, a life fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and author of The Eye Care Revolution. “In between there’s fluid called aqueous fluid in the front of the eye, and vitreous humor, a gelatin-like material in the back.”
This vitreous humor is normally like Jello and contains fine collagen fibers that hold it together, he explains. However, factors such as aging, eye-rubbing, coughing, exposure to sunlight and even straining to have bowel movements can break down collagen in the vitreous humor, as can injury or trauma.
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The result: Collagen fragments clump together in the eye, casting shadows on the retina that we see as eye floaters. Plus, these factors can contribute to posterior vitreous attachment (PVD), a condition in which the vitreous humor tugs on or detaches from the retina. This produces spiderwebs, circles, squiggles or dots in our field of vision that may or may not be accompanied by flashes of light, Dr. Abel notes.
How to get rid of eye floaters
First, the good news: Floaters aren’t usually a sign of something serious. In fact, they may not even require treatment. Still, they can be a symptom of an eye problem such as infection, hemorrhage, vein occlusion, retinal detachment or a retinal tear. That’s the reason Dr. Abel advises seeing an optometrist or ophthalmologist to have them (and your eye health) assessed.
“Most eye doctors will want to see you within 24 hours, especially if you experience a sudden increase in floaters of flashes,” he says. Once serious conditions are ruled out, the following strategies can decrease the severity of eye floaters.
Give it time
According to a 2017 Journal of Ophthalmology study, most floaters subside with time. One reason: Gravity can cause them to drop down and out of your line of sight over a period of weeks or months. And fibers in the vitreous humor can contract over time, too.
“This pulls them further away from the retina and makes floaters smaller in appearance,” Dr. Abel explains. The caveat: “We don’t stand still—we lie down, we move, we shake our heads, so we shake those babies up.” This means that for many people, floaters will continue to come and go.
Try collagen-boosting supplements
Supplementing with vitamin C and the amino acid proline may make floaters less apparent by helping to rebuild collagen in the vitreous humor. That’s why Dr. Abel recommends taking 2,000 mg of each nutrient daily. “Give it a month or two and see if it helps,” he advises. “I’d say there’s a 40 percent chance that it will.”
Another potentially helpful option: taking a combination of vitamin C, zinc, grapeseed extract, bitter orange and the amino acid l-lysine. A 2021 study in the journal Translational Vision Science and Technology found that folks who did so daily experienced significant reductions in visual discomfort from floaters within six months. Try: Macuhealth VitreousHealth.
Slip on sunglasses
As previously noted, exposure to sunlight can contribute to the formation of floaters. But sunlight can also make floaters more apparent, so Dr. Abel recommends donning sunglasses whenever you’re venturing outdoors.
Also smart: Wearing blue-light blocking lenses when working on the computer. A 2020 report in the journal Medical Hypothesis suggests the blue light emitted by electronic screens can speed the breakdown of the vitreous humor, triggering an increase in floaters.
When to consider surgery to get rid of eye floaters
For some people, eye floaters are simply a nuisance. But others find floaters highly distressing. A 2017 Journal of Ophthamology study found that patients with severe floaters reported higher rates of depression, stress and anxiety than their counterparts whose floaters were moderate or mild.
If you find your floaters are impossible to live with, surgical procedures to reduce or get rid of them completely are available. But Dr. Abel recommends considering them carefully.
A technique known as laser vitreolysis uses lasers to break up eye floaters with the aim of making them so small that they’re unnoticeable. “But it usually doesn’t work,” he says. Indeed, a 2019 study in the journal Ophthalmology found that 66 percent of people who received the laser therapy treatment were dissatisfied with the results.
This surgery gets rid of floaters more effectively
A better bet in Dr. Abel’s opinion: a procedure known as vitrectomy that involves removing the vitreous layer entirely. “Vitrectomy does get rid of floaters, and it’s a pretty standard procedure,” he says. “I get about one person a year who has this done, and I will say they’re very satisfied.”
But he cautions that if you opt for vitrectomy, you may need surgery to remove cataracts in the future. Authors of a 2021 report in the journal International Ophthalmology Clinics point out that up to 80 percent of people who undergo vitrectomy will develop a significant cataract within two years.
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