Liz's story

I first developed floaters in my right eye about four years ago. At first, I was terrified and thought I might

be losing my vision in that eye. I booked an emergency appointment at my eye clinic. I was relieved to

find out that other than the floaters, my eye was healthy. However, it was somewhat disheartening that

my eye doctor didn’t have any practical solutions for me. But I was emboldened to research the issue

myself and find my own solutions. How naïve I was! I searched almost daily online to find something,

anything, which would cure my floaters. Alas, there was nothing proven to cure them aside from

surgery. I did see research on pineapple consumption, so I tried some pineapple for a while, but I didn’t

see any changes in my floaters. I also searched for groups and found some online groups. I developed

friendships with several fellow sufferers, and that helped me immensely! No one in my “real world”

seemed to understand the frustration, anxiety, and sadness I was experiencing. My online friends

understood me.

Within about a year, I developed floaters in my left eye. At that point, I was feeling better about the

floaters and kind of expected that my other eye would develop them. Par for the course in my mind. I

didn’t freak out like I had initially, and I was getting better at learning to cope with the floaters.

Whenever I felt scared or upset, I reached out to my floater friends. We could commiserate together

and share our journeys. I started to develop true friendships with a small number of my floater friends,

and I didn’t focus on floaters as much with them anymore. We learned about each other’s lives, and we

talked about our careers, our families and more.

I grew somewhat more sensitive to light because of my eye condition, so I started to wear sunglasses

whenever I was outside. That led to a deep dive into the best pair of sunglasses for floaters, etc. I now

have an extensive collection of sunglasses which I like to wear for different occasions. I do believe that

one should not wear sunglasses indoors, however, because I believe it is healthy for our eyes to

experience differences in lighting sources.

After this first year of research and study, I started to focus less on my floaters. I delved into meditation

and self-help methods which helped me so much! I started to incorporate more and more of these into

my daily life and shared these ideas with my floater friends. And while I tried to be patient and kind to

those floater sufferers in the online groups who were depressed and negative, I found that I needed to

be part of groups which were supportive and focused on positivity. My best floater friends have these

qualities as well. While we can get scared and upset about our condition, most of the time we are

striving to get better and build each other up.

Now four years later, I can say that I have many days where I don’t see my floaters at all. They are there,

and there are seemingly hundreds of them in each eye, but I look through them. They float across my

vision 24/7, and they can be irritating if I’m tired or having a bad day; but most of the time, I am ok with

them. I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy, but they have also taught me a lot. They have taught

me to value my health and to take care of myself. I also found new friends who I deeply care about and

who have improved my life greatly. I control how I think and feel about the floaters, and I won’t let them

take me down!