gothick_matt

The floaters are definitely not what makyo has then?

They are almost certainly just plain "you're getting old and you're quite shortsighted so things are likely to be a bit more stretched back there than in other people" floaters, althought there's apparently not a digital "yes/no" gap in between what I probably have and makyo's diagnosis.

It's still possible that it's worse than it looks at a first glance from a GP's ophthalmoscope, but there's nothing that looks so bad that it's worth bothering (the excellent and very handily located for me) Bristol Eye Hospital with unless it gets worse rather than better.

Ok the floaters in the eyes can either be artifacts from when you were in the womb or lots of horrible stuff, go and see an Optician, they have the real stuf to look into your eyes. Also if you see stuff in your eyes like little black dots then GO RIGHT NOW, this may be a symptom of diabetes.
Maybe I'm paranoid but 20 mins of having someone looking into your eyes is not going to ruin the bank balance.

It was an optician who first told me there wasn't anything to worry about; I was just getting a second opinion from the doc...

I've had floaters if you'll excuse the terminology :) If you're looking at something without blinking and the black blobs are "floating down" then it's exactly like what I had. My optician explained them as dead cells from the inside of the eyeball, they take ages to float down through the eye because it's full of jelly and they take a while to get through it. It happens every few years as the inside of the eye gets regenerated. It's only if you're seeing black blobs with lights around them that you're in danger of diabetes. I've got that now that I'm in the latter stages of DG and the pressure inside the eye is going a bit mad. This will go away for me once Seren's here, if this is what you're seeing then I'd definately go and get tested again.

Apart from all that, flaoters are just an inconvenience... especially when you're trying to read something!

I have idly wondered about this through the years. Aren't GPs meant to encourage you along for check-ups, and stuff? I think I've been asked once, when I got to Uni, and I managed to forget to go to that one...