How to Reduce Floaters in Eyes Naturally: 8 Best Ways!

Troubled with floaters in your eyes? Get rid of the floaters in your eyes through some natural remedies by reading this article on “how to reduce floaters in eyes naturally.” This article says about 8 ways in which you can reduce them.

1. Eye Floaters: What are They?

Ever felt irritated by those squiggly lines and dots that appear in front of your eyes? You might try blinking or rubbing your eyes, but they are still there. You might be experiencing floaters in your eyes.

Eye floaters are tiny shapes in your vision. They would appear in any shape as tiny and squiggly specks, lines, webs, and dots, which seem like small dust particles. Eye floaters mainly occur due to changes in a fluid called vitreous humor inside your eyeballs.

Vitreous fluid¹ is a gel-like substance inside your eyes, and it will start to shrink primarily because of old age or any other reasons. When this fluid shrinks, microscopic fibers detach from this fluid which forms a clump and floats through the fluid. These clumps cast a shadow in the retina, which appears as floaters in your vision.

Even though eye floaters do not seriously harm your vision or cause any pain, you will find vision difficulties.

However, if you experience a lot of floaters in your eyes along with flashes, it can be a sign of retinal detachment, a condition in which your retina tears away from the layer in the back of your eye. This layer contains tissues that provide oxygen and nourishment to your retina.

Retinal detachment is a severe illness that leads to permanent blindness. It needs emergency medical attention. So, if you experience an increase in floaters in your eyes, it is better to consult your eye doctor immediately.

1.1 Treatment

Eye floaters are mainly treated through surgery or laser treatment. The surgery is called a vitrectomy. However, both these eye floater treatment methods have risk factors. The surgery can result in bleeding. Also, laser therapy can harm your eyes, which is not 100 percent effective.

Since most people are hesitant towards the traditional medical treatments for eye floaters because of their risks and low effectiveness, now you might be thinking about how to reduce floaters in eyes naturally.

Yes, it is possible to cure them through natural remedies and treatments. But it depends upon your health condition and the reason for the floater formation in your eyes.

2. How to Reduce Floaters in Eyes Naturally

The primary cause of floaters is aging and the subsequent shrinking of vitreous fluid. However, it can occur even if you are still in your youth. You don’t need to go for surgery or laser therapy².

You need to look for how to naturally reduce floaters in your eyes or prevent them by ensuring your overall eye health. Here are 8 ways to naturally reduce floaters in the eyes.

2.1. Quit Smoking and Drinking

As mentioned earlier, it is essential to quit habits that cause premature aging of your eye. Alcohol and cigarettes are some of the most unhealthy habits that most people have.

The toxic and chemical substances in alcohol and cigarettes lead to premature aging of vitreous fluid and trigger eye floaters’ development. If you are looking for how to reduce floaters in the eyes naturally, the first thing you must do is drop drinking and smoking.

If you are experiencing floaters, smoking, and drinking can highly increase it. Also, even if you are not already experiencing it, you are at high risk of developing floaters in your vision.

2.2. Reduce Screen Time

In this digital era, you see more screens than you see people or the real world. The use of computers, smartphones, and other gadgets has highly captured our time. All this screen usage is adversely affecting your vision and eye health.

Continuous screen time can lead to several eye problems and worsen your overall eye health. This can hinder reducing eye floaters naturally so, if you are concerned about how to reduce floaters in the eyes naturally, try to reduce your screen time, by practicing the 20-20-20 rule.

The 20-20-20 rule is one effective way to reduce damage to the eyes while using screens. If you are working on a computer screen for a long time, try looking away from the screen for 20 seconds into anything 20 feet away once every 20 minutes.

This is how the 20-20-20 rule works. Practicing this would significantly improve your vision and help to reduce screen time, especially if you are exposed to screens for long hours.

2.3. Wear Protective Eyewear

Protecting your eyes from dirt, screens, and other harmful substances can help vastly to reduce eye floaters. Try to wear protective eyewear to prevent dust, dirt, and other substances from getting into your eyes. This is one way you can prevent floaters.

Also, protect your eyes from the blue light emission from the screen. Screens, mainly smartphone screens, emit a blue light which is harmful to your eyes. They can cause eye strain, itchiness, pain, dry eyes, and redness and can lead to severe cases such as myopia if you continuously use screens.

So, protective eyewear such as blue light glasses to block the emission can help significantly to tackle this issue.

Also, protect your eyes from any harsh lights or direct sunlight. Wear sunglasses on sunny days, avoiding looking into the sun directly. Wear eyeglasses; it provides you with enough eye protection and help to get rid of eye floaters.

2.4. Healthy Diet

Suppose you are looking for a solution on how to reduce floaters in eyes naturally. You must ensure that you are eating a healthy balanced diet. Incorporate your daily diet with nutritious, anti-inflammatory food and foods rich in omega 3, vital nutrients to support eye health.

Also include leafy vegetables, fish, and fresh fruits to have excellent overall eye health. Even though there are no specific foods that cure eye floaters and other eye problems, these foods can improve eye health and prevent premature aging.

Also, avoid eating processed and packed foods, sugary drinks, fried foods, and other junk food items.

2.5. Stay Hydrated

Hydration is essential to a healthy vision. Drinking more water helps to get rid of toxins and debris from your body which is beneficial for your eye health and helps reduce the development of new floaters in the eye.

2.6. Ensure Mental Health

Do you think your mental health does not affect your eye health? You’re mistaken. Many mental health illnesses have effects on vision issues. Stress and anxiety ³can trigger the formation of eye floaters.

So it is crucial that should be fit mentally as well as physically. Try stress-relieving and relaxing through music, meditation, and yoga.

2.7. Rest Your Eyes and Get Enough Sleep

You should ensure that your eyes are receiving enough rest every day. Also, getting enough sleep is equally important. Sleeping late, and not getting good deep sleep adversely affect your eye health.

Poor sleep contributes to premature aging of the eyes and several other vision problems. So, enough sleep is one of the solutions for reducing floaters in the eyes.

2.8. Eye Exercises

Yes! You heard it right. Your eyes need to work out too. Screen usage, inadequate diet, poor sleep, and other lifestyle habits worsen your vision and eye health day by day.

So, to reduce eye floaters naturally, you need to ensure that your vision health is good. Practice eye exercises such as rolling your eyes or focusing your sights on a moving object. Massaging gently on your temples is also beneficial to get rid of eye floaters.

3. Medical Treatments v/s Natural Remedies

• The traditional treatment for floaters is an eye surgery called vitrectomy. In this surgery, the vitreous is removed from your eyes, and a saline solution is replaced in your eyes to maintain the shape of your eyeballs.
• Another medical treatment for floaters is laser therapy.
• Even though it is not scientifically proven, many people extensively use hyaluronic acid as eye drops.

All of these treatments have side effects. For instance, vitrectomy has a high risk of eye infection, damage to the lens, retinal detachment, or bleeding in the eye. The eye is a susceptible organ, and it might not take such intrusive surgeries ⁴well. Thus, vitrectomy is suggested by eye doctors only in rare situations.

Laser therapy is also not very effective in getting rid of eye floaters. The hyaluronic serum is not proven to cure floaters and does not work for everyone.

This is why many people avoid surgery and other medical treatment methods and naturally reduce floater in the eyes. Also, they are less expensive than medical treatments.

Compared to medical therapies, natural treatment methods also have their drawbacks.

• None of these remedies offer a fast recovery.
• Some approaches might work for some people, while some might not work for others.

4. Causes of Eye Floaters

One of the underlying and common reasons for the formation of eye floaters is aging. However, you can experience eye floaters even if you are young, and most of the time, it is normal. There are some other reasons too why you might experience floaters. And some of these reasons can lead to severe health conditions.

Reasons such as:

• Injuries and inflammation in your eyes.
• Nearsightedness: if you have nearsightedness, you will experience eye floaters frequently.
• Uveitis is the condition of inflammation of the uvea inside your eyes. When you have uveitis, it causes to release of inflammatory debris into the vitreous fluid. This floating debris can also appear as floaters in your vision.
• Myopia: eye floaters can be a sign of myopia.
• Bleeding inside your eyes: sometimes, bleeding into vitreous fluid can occur due to diabetes and other health conditions. This is also one of the causes of eye floaters.
• Diabetic retinopathy: if you have diabetic retinopathy, you will be experiencing eye floaters frequently. Diabetic retinopathy⁵ is a severe illness that is one of the complications of diabetes. It damages the retina’s blood vessels, which eventually leads to blindness. Eye floaters are one of the early symptoms of diabetic retinopathy.
• Retinal detachment: Like diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment is also a severe health condition that affects your eye. It is a condition in which the retina pulls away from its normal position. An increased number of eye floaters is one of the signs of retinal detachment.

5. Symptoms

• The occurrence of transparent shapes moving along when you move your eye from one object to the other.
• Spots and specks in your vision are mainly when you look at blank backgrounds such as a blank wall, clear blue sky, and other plain surfaces.

6. When to See an Eye Doctor?

These are some of the alarming symptoms ⁶you should watch out for. Suppose you experience any of them. Consult your eye doctor.

• Flashes along with floaters
• A sudden increase in the number of floaters
• Loss of peripheral vision
• Unable to tolerate light

Even though floaters are normal, if you experience these symptoms very frequently, you should consult your eye doctor as these symptoms can be the signs of other serious eye problems.

7. The Bottom Line

Eye floaters are a widespread phenomenon if you are over 60 years. The vitreous is a gel-like substance in your eye that shrinks and, as a result, solidified parts of this fluid float through the vitreous. This is a standard aging procedure.

However, it is likely to happen to you a little early; both of these are very normal. So do not ignore floaters and think that they will eventually settle down. If they are too irritating, just look into how to reduce eye floaters naturally.

But if you experience eye problems such as pain or the sudden appearance of many floaters,s consult an eye doctor immediately.

In short, it is okay if you see some floaters that are painless and generally harmful. You don’t need to sweat it too much. Painless floaters can be easily reduced by the home remedies that we have mentioned above.

In case of severe floaters, never hesitate to consult a doctor immediately.

8. FAQs

8.1 Do I Need to be Worried About Eye Floaters?

Most of the time, ocular floaters are innocuous and don’t need to be treated right away. However, it is crucial to contact an eye doctor right away if you observe a sudden, major rise in floaters, encounter light flashes, or have a loss of peripheral vision, as these symptoms may point to a retinal detachment or other serious eye disorders.

8.2 Can Eye Floaters Go Away by Themselves?

Eye floaters may eventually settle in the base of your eye and lessen in prominence. However, without medical treatment, they usually do not go away completely.

8.3 Can Eye Exercises Exacerbate Eye Floaters?

Exercises for the eyes are harmless and may offer momentary alleviation or temporarily move floaters. Excessive or strenuous eye activities can strain the eyes and exacerbate symptoms. It’s best to conduct eye workouts sparingly and to speak with an eye care specialist if you have any questions.

1. Lee, Sun Young, et al. “Increased glial fibrillary acid protein and vimentin in vitreous fluid as a biomarker for proliferative vitreoretinopathy.” Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 61.5 (2020): 22-22. ↩︎
2. Everett, Lesley A., and Yannis M. Paulus. “Laser therapy in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema.” Current diabetes reports 21 (2021): 1-12. ↩︎
3. Knowles, Kelly A., and Bunmi O. Olatunji. “Specificity of trait anxiety in anxiety and depression: Meta-analysis of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.” Clinical psychology review 82 (2020): 101928. ↩︎
4. Committee for Scientific Affairs, The Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery, et al. “Thoracic and cardiovascular surgeries in Japan during 2018: annual report by the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery.” General thoracic and cardiovascular surgery 69 (2021): 179-212. ↩︎
5. Antonetti, David A., Paolo S. Silva, and Alan W. Stitt. “Current understanding of the molecular and cellular pathology of diabetic retinopathy.” Nature Reviews Endocrinology 17.4 (2021): 195-206. ↩︎
6. Aiyegbusi, Olalekan Lee, et al. “Symptoms, complications and management of long COVID: a review.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 114.9 (2021): 428-442. ↩︎

Last Updated on July 22, 2024 by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology