How safe is it to patch your eye for hours everyday?
I'm under the impression that consensus says 4 hours per day is safe. Is that so?
One-Eye-Success for 10+ users on LEDStrain
I saw a BVD specialist yesterday, here's the summary:
Diagnosed with Convergence insuffiency (Exophoria), Vertical heterophoria (Spasm of accomodation), and Paresis of accomodation (General binocular vision dysfunction)
Basically, my eyes are constantly working in overdrive to keep my vision as clear as possible, and this is what causes my symptoms. For example, she had me look at a chart that measures convergence. The normal range is between 2 and 6, my number for close range was 16 (!), and long range was 24 (!!). The flickering screens are apparently putting extra strain on my system, which is why they're so hard to deal with.
The specialist was not surprised at all that the eyepatch helped, since I clearly have massive issues with binocular vision. This suggests to me that if you experience relief with the eyepatch, you should definitely look into getting checked for BVD. It may not end up being the answer for your particular situation, but it is absolutely a lead worth looking into.
She was also not surprised that my new lenses help, since they at least partially address my eye misalignments. She recommended to keep wearing them to see if my symptoms keep improving (I'd say these lenses reduce the symptoms by 60-70% as of right now, hoping to get that number up as much as possible)
The plan for now is to do regular vison therapy with her & try Neurolens again (My last attempt w/ Neurolens didn't help with flicker at all, because the prescription didn't account for the totality of my misalignments. Hoping for a better result this time.)
I specifically asked what she thought about my prognosis and if she felt positive about treating or curing this issue. She said that she does feel positive, though I'll probably need lenses permanently and it'll take a good deal of visual therapy.
Overall, I'm actually hopeful for the first time in literally years. I can't thank you guys enough for suggesting the eyepatch, it's an incredible lead and I'd highly suggest anyone who feels relief from it to get thoroughly checked for BVD or any kind of eye misalignments. You could literally be one pair of prism lenses away from some sort of relief 
Yes, I received this new prescription from my optometrist a few weeks ago when I was first diagnosed with the double eye misalignment:
Sphere OD +0.50
Sphere OS +0.25
H Prism OD 1.25 Bl
H Prism OS 1.25 Bl
V Prism OD 0.75 BD
V Prism OS 0.75 BU
I'm currently wearing lenses with this prescription & have about a 60-70% reduction in symptoms. My main symptom now is eye fatigue & slight dizziness after 2-3 hours of using a flickering screen, but it dissipates much faster than before. It's much better, but not perfect yet.
I also got a new Neurolens prescription from the BVD specialist that has vertical prism + new horizontal prism that was worked out by my optometrist & BVD specialist together. I'll definitely post updates if the new Neurolenses provide even more relief.
ensete Well, here's the post I got the "4 hours" figure from:
https://ledstrain.org/d/1308-one-eye-success-for-10-users-on-ledstrain/46
This recommendation was given to @bkdo by his optometrist; since he's a medical professional, I used the word "consensus" (though indeed it's not very accurate to call it consensus).
Yep, he recommended that I not use the patch for more than 4 hours each day & only wear it when using problematic screens. For anyone who wants to use the patch on a daily basis, I'd highly recommend speaking with your optometrist so they can give you accurate advice on your situation.
Yes, I've definitely had double vision. It happens when my eyes are extremely fatigued, and it usually manifests as text being vertically doubled slightly. No double vision whatsoever since getting these prism lenses though, thankfully.
Here is the scary story to share about my One Eye Test.
I stated previously that looking with one eye doesn't help and the problem remains.
Well, I found out that while it doesn't help me, it clearly prevents my closed eye to take a damage. If I look only with one eye, that will be the eye that gets red and gets an new visible blood vessels on the surface, that gets light sensitivity, that huts on the surface and where some muscles twitch.
Be careful. As my problem is not connected to BVD, those two cases should be differentiated. Track your eye health.
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The interesting thing, according to my optometrist, is that prism lenses may not actually be directly fixing anything related to the flicker. For example, the prism lenses are be helping w/ flicker, but that could simply be because my eyes are less strained overall and can more easily deal w/ flicker. This has definitely lined up with my experience - I've had the double vision come back after 4-6 hours of screen time, which makes me think the glasses didn't directly solve the issue.
I think this is actually good news, because it means we can try to find solutions for the underlying problem (For me, it's BVD), and still see positive results with flicker sensitivity.
I'm sorry to hear that, those symptoms sound rough to deal with. Have you seen an ophthalmologist?
6 days later
So I received my eyepatch 2 days ago and have been using it for all screens since (on my "bad" eye). Seems to give me a massive improvement. ("seems" because it may be placebo, and because it's too early to tell for sure).
I went to a BVD specialist, they diagnosed me with astigmatism but no BVD.
Interestingly, I have the exact same symptom as @bkdo ("text getting slightly vertically doubled when my eyes are very fatigued") that he corrected via prism lenses, but I don't have BVD so no prism lenses for me.
Here's my new theory for my screen strain and eye patching:
- The astigmatism (which is much stronger in my left eye) leads to left-eye fatigue because the eye is constantly trying unsuccessfully to focus properly. The wikipedia page for astigmatism says: "symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at night")
- The eye patch lets that left eye not try to focus at all, which fixes the above.
- Still not sure why the problem happens only with screens
Planning to go to my personal ophthalmologist for a prescription for astigmatism glasses in about a week (the BVD specialist wouldn't give me one).
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This is interesting, I haven’t had any double vision what i have notice. For me covering one eye have changed my binocular vision over time so now I can use all screens with both eyes open. And because it have worked with one eye, I have put my problem in the BVD category.
So in my point of view, if it makes a massive improvement with covering one eye, it sounds like BVD.
In the beginning of November I changed my mobile device to a iPhone 13 Pro. It’s definitely a bit worse than my previous iPhone 11 Pro. So after two weeks, i started with covering one eye. The interesting thing here is that it was more problematic then I remember. Some nights it didn’t work with one eye, and some it did. The nights it worked I had it covered the whole time for some hours, and the nights when i covered, uncovered and covered again it just got bad.
So the conclusion here is, if it don’t work with covering one eye direct, try other variant and find what works for you. One test is not enough.
In the beginning of December i was brave enough to change tv to a brand new LG G1 “OLED EVO”. Just like the iPhone 13 Pro it was worse than my older Sony LED-tv from 2011.
With some weeks of one eye training things is going in the right direction and now my new devices feels quite nice. But not as good as my old devices. So i will keep on training for some more weeks or months.
Careful buying into this Vision Therapy too much. I saw a the top on in my region, and he diagnosed me with the same thing you were diagnosed with, and played into all my hopes that we were onto something that could be cured, took my $5,000 for a 12 week Vision Therapy course .... and it did nothing. NO help at all. They even conned me into buying several "home exercise devices" at $200-$300 a pop. The best thing I got for them was the $2 eyepatch I now use.
There is very limited scientific data on the effectiveness of "Vision Therapy", and there are a LOT of quacks out there looking to milk desperate people for a buck. If it helps you, that's great, but I implore everyone to be VERY skeptical of claims that seem to be a magical answer and have a big price tag attached.
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Thanks for the heads-up. I was definitely a little skeptical at the $200/session cost, I’m hoping I can do most of the training at home or something once they give me the exercise programs.
Sorry to hear that the therapy didn’t help you, that sounds very frustrating. Did you notice any changes to your vision at all from the therapy? Even temporarily?
As I've been waiting for my vertical prisms I tried patching again, but this time I patch almost all the time when using bad screens (at least 6h per day).
So far I don't see any massive improvement in most of my symptoms, but there is something very interesting. Blurry vision which I always got from bad devices doesn't exist anymore. Even after 8+ hours in front of my new asus laptop(left eye patched all this time) my vision is stable. It's been three days, but I'm going to continue patching till the end of January to see if it may change anything.
