Vitreous opacity

The eye has almost the form of bowel whereas its interior is filled up with a lucent, jelly-like substance. This substance is called vitreous body. The vitreous body itself consists of 99% water. In addition, to the 1% of permanent feature belong microscopic-small fibres that are homogenously distributed with young people and therefore unseen.

The liquefaction of the vitreous body is, however, in one single aspect not harmless. The fluid vitreous body is moving to the opposite direction of the retina when doing eye-sight movements. In case some fibres hold on to parts of the retina, the eye movement exercises strain there which in some cases may cause a laceration to the retina. By such a laceration the liquefaction of the vitreous body can get under the retina and at latest cause a retinal detachment.

Only the examination of an opthalomologist can clarify if there is an increased risk for suffering from haziness of the vitreous body.

The vitreous body particles swim in the liquefaction of the vitreous body that implies the affected patient that in front of the eye filamentous worms are moving or midges are flying around. The patient conceives this cognition as subjectively disturbing especially when looking on bright-lighted surfaces although the visual acuity is not decreased by this.

Unfortunately there is no way to remove this normally harmless but in the same way irritating haziness of the vitreous body. However, this is not necessary in our experience because the patients get used to this circumstance and in time he/she will not feel disturbed by the alteration of the vitreous body any more. In order to avoid a detached retina you should have regular check-ups at your ophthalmologist.