The Symptoms of Retinal Detachment

Retinal detachment is a condition that is caused when the back of the eye, known as the retina, begins to detach from the rest of your eye. The Mayo Clinic classifies retinal detachment as a serious condition that would require emergency surgical attention when the condition is properly diagnosed. Your eye doctor would diagnose retinal detachment using a thorough eye exam.

Flashers

• Flashers are random occurrences of flashing white lights that occur as symptoms of retinal detachment. They can occur at seemingly random moments, or they can occur when you move your eye in a particular way. The lights can either be spots of white light, or they can be overwhelming flashes of white light that can temporarily blind you. As your case of retinal detachment gets progressively worse, you will begin to experience flashers more frequently.

Floaters

• Floaters are objects that appear to be floating around directly in front of the eye, but are actually illusions created by your retinal detachment. You may notice floaters as small spots that move around your field of vision, or they may look like small pieces of string. It is also possible that they could take on the shape of a spider web that comes and goes. As your retinal detachment becomes more serious, your floaters will become larger and they will cause you a great deal of frustration.

Partial Blindness

• As retinal detachment advances, you may begin to notice that part of your visual field is being blocked. It is the same effect as putting a piece of paper in front of a projector lens and partially blocking the image being projected. This loss of your visual field will come and go when the condition first starts, but as the condition gets worse it will be more difficult for you to shake the block in your vision.

Peripheral Vision

• It is normal for retinal detachment to start on the outside of the retina and move inward toward the center. The early stages may cause a wavy look to your peripheral vision, and you may even get a headache when you try to use your peripheral view. As the retinal detachment gets worse, it will start to move toward the center of the retina, and you may begin to experience wavy vision or double vision even when you are looking straight ahead. This distortion in the center of your vision field is an extremely advanced symptom of retinal detachment that should be reported to your doctor immediately.

Pain

• For all of the symptoms you may experience with retinal detachment, the one symptom you will not experience is pain. The condition of retinal detachment involves the retina of your eye which has no pain sensory nerves in it. So the detachment of the retina from the rest of the eye will give no pain symptoms.