Strange sudden eye problems including f... - Sight Loss Support

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Strange sudden eye problems including floaters and flashes. Help!

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EM33
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Hi, I’m 14 and I’ve been moderately shortsited (-4.5 in the left and -4.75 in the right) for about 5/6 years now. About 3/4 weeks ago we had a thunderstorm with a lot of lighting. I walked into my kitchen which was well lit (this was in the down ay) and saw a sudden white flash in the whole of my vision, almost like somebody had just flashed a bright torch on and off infront of me quickly, I assumed it was lightning. This has happened quite a few times now and for the first probably 7 times it happened I just assumed it was lightning, and continued to assume this until I was sitting in class one day at school about 2/3 weeks ago and saw 2 little dots floating across my vision. I knew they were floaters as I have heared about them before, but I have never had any of these issues with my vision apart from shortsightedness. It worried me instantly, so went home and researched all about them. I am aware they could be harmless but I have a very bad feeling about it, and have seen that if you’re experiencing floaters along with the flashes, there could be something wrong. At first it was occasional small floaters and flashes, but they’ve gotten increasingly and rapidly worse. It’s been sunny lately so we’ve been outside barbecuing and what not, and these floaters just won’t leave me alone! I now see them everywhere, even when looking at peoples faces or reading in places that aren’t even well lit! (although they’re usually more visible when I’m somewhere bright, eg looking at the sky) I continue to see them in all lighting now. And not to mention they’re really big now and I just can’t go a single day without seeing at least 40/50. They can be the strangest shapes too. I’ve had GCSE’s in school these past 2 weeks and can’t concentrate becuase I just see floaters drifting across my paper and the wall. I see strange things too, almost like strange dark shapes just floating around (they’re not floaters), mostly in my prephiral vision. Back to the flashes, once I had researched floaters I noticed that they’re sometimes paired with ‘flashes of light’, this is when I noticed that that is what I was experiencing. Sometimes I will see full vision flashes as previously explained but now, they’re mostly little flashing white or black dots (sometimes the black dots pulsate in my left eye) in my vision. I am experiencing eye pain occasionally. I noticed that for the past 6 months, my eyesight is getting rapidly worse, I now this is normal for teens but I’m talking about seriously rapidly: I recieved new, stronger glasses approximately 5/6 months ago, and just under 2 months later my shortsightedness had gotten even worse by 3 steps!! This is now happening frequently. For about 4 months now, I have suffered with bad night vision, where I walked into my room in the dark one evening and saw that I was seeing more than double of the light on my digital light up clock (the numbers light up). This also got increasingly worse and I now experience severe glare and haloes, and also the triple vision and glare of light constantly, not just in the dark, but even in full daylight. For example, if I look at a street lamp I will see huge white lines coming out of it, or if there are subtitles on a screen I will see multiple of them. I recently went to the optician to explain these glare issues etc (I had not yet experienced the flashes or floaters) who said she wasn’t sure what was wrong, gave me stronger glasses and said to go to the doctor if symptoms persist/get worse. They did! I went to the doctor who didn’t do any tests on my eyes (this was at the stage when I still thought the flashes were lightning, so I only mentioned the glare/ double vision of light) and he just asked me to read something, sat me down and booked me an appointment with the ophthalmologist at the hospital. It is since then my symptoms of floaters and flashes have been revealed and everything is getting worse by the day. I have no idea when my ophthalmologist appointment is and have been waiting for a little while now. I don’t know what to do! It’s really affecting me. Something that’s also happening is I sometimes see a dark shadow just fly across my vision (not floaters) they can be white or black, but usually black. I can sometimes see a shower of flashing white dots in my vision and I know that all of this is very abnormal for my age. I can feel that something is wrong, I’m just not sure what!? Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions? Is this serious? Should I try to push for my ophthalmologist appointment? My Grandad has glaucoma, but my optician tested for that and I do not have it. All of these symptoms get worse by the day! As I say, none of this has ever happened before! Everything that appeared, appeared so suddenly, none of it was gradual. P.S- sorry for how long this is!!😂

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