Monitor Strain - Brain fog, neck pain, fear of seizure(?)

Infinite Visited top tier ophthalmologist. Apparently I could have an early onset of Glaucoma due to elevated intraocular pressure.

You are not a hypochondriac. I identify with some of your symptoms, especially the debilitating “brain fog."

I also had a neuro-ophthalmologist suggest possible early-onset glaucoma. A visual field test detected peripheral blindness in one eye. It turned out that the LED lights in the newly renovated doctor's office started one of my flicker migraines. I went back again when migraine-free, wore welding glasses in the waiting room and covered my eyes with my hands and then had them keep the overhead lights off in the exam room. Repeated the visual field test and it was completely normal. It’s interesting to hear that someone else also had a similar experience. This is the only time any doctor actually detected anything "wrong" with me. I think it’s evidence for both of us that the problems aren’t some kind of hypochondria.

I also relate to your description of feeling like you’re not in your own body. I’m not sure that it’s quite the same thing, but ambient LED flicker immediately makes me feel vaguely like there’s something off in my how I’m occupying the space around me. This feeling intensifies for me during a flicker migraine and this sense of some kind of spatial disorientation is accompanied by nausea. I think that initial subtle feeling of something being "off" has some similarities to what anxiety feels like, but I don’t think, at least for me, that it’s the same thing. I rarely feel anxious and never in relation to lights. My current hypothesis is that I’m actually perceiving the light flicker at a semi-conscious level, which is making my perception of the space around me feel "off." Then I suspect that the abnormal synchronization of brainwaves that probably happens during a flicker-induced migraine may lock my brain into some kind of signaling that makes me feel this spatial disorientation and nausea even after I’m not directly looking at the flicker. Then it just takes a lot of time for my brain to return to normal and for my perception of how I’m occupying space to feel stable. I really wonder how many other people who say that they “don’t like" LED lights are slightly disoriented by semi-consciously perceiving the flicker.

You aren’t alone. It's difficult for me to convince others that invisible flicker makes me very ill since most people don’t consciously perceive it at all.

You’re definitely in good company here in a very helpful community. I can’t personally comment much on the computer screen configurations, but I know for me, any exposure to flickering ambient light increases my sensitivity to both screens and ambient lights. Increasing the amount of flicker-free light (sunlight or truly flicker-free LEDs) helps me overall, I think because it mitigates perception of the flicker of other lights. Minimizing exposure to flickering ambient light and wearing Shade5 welding glasses and a baseball hat when I can’t avoid it also helps. My latest flicker migraine lasted about 7 weeks following 3 hours of exposure to flickering LED lights. Even the minimal flicker of some incandescent lights bothered me during the migraine. Sunlight was still good. The only artificial lights that didn’t exacerbate the migraine were flicker-free LEDs with a 0.00 flicker index. These seem to be really hard to find these days. Waveform makes them in the US - maybe someone else knows of a European manufacturer.

Infinite I’m sorry to hear that you were sick and I hope you’re feeling better now!

Infinite Irrational fear of seizures(?) - There are moments where my brain feels like a mush, the feeling intensifies and I feel like I'm about to get a seizure. This happens frequently when former symptoms are present. I could describe this feeling by immense amount of pressure in my head that I can't stop? Perhaps it's blood rushing to my brain? I really don't want to make irrational diagnosis here. I have no idea.

So obviously I am not you, and my situation may be different, but I have been seen by countless neurologists, ophthalmologists, and nuero-ophthalmologists in various specialty centers across 7 different states at this point, and one thing I have heard from every single one is that while our condition is painful, and real, it does not present any physical or neurological risk or stroke, seizure, or anything else. It's just discomfort. So take that for what it is worth.

I can relate to some of this, earlier today I posted some of my story, under the 'My possible solution….' thread.

I have heard there is a nerve that goes down the spine from the head that can cause migraines when stressed, e.g. with whiplash victims.

I had some brainfog develop a few years ago, I started taking saturated fats, which help the brain, my fog is getting better, (I overhauled my diet, and went totally healthy too).

I used to get 'auras' too, if thats what you meant by feeling of seizures. These stopped once i used the tinted glasses, see my original post, to see what i mean.

Infinite Rotating my neck feels like grinding gears(or sand/tiny stones in my neck)

I have that exact thing. My diagnosis is "cervical spondylosis" which was diagnosed in a rheumatology clinic.

Infinite I feel like I forget what I want to say, how I phrase my sentences and difficulty thinking in general.

I used to have that, years ago. Was caused by stopping a bunch of meds cold turkey back in 2013. Do you have anything like that in your history?