One-Eye-Success for 10+ users on LEDStrain
AGI I have been triggered by CFL and LED lighting for decades. They are my primary trigger, much more so than screens.
However, CFL lights have pretty much vanished from the marketplace, and mew LED's seems to be less offensive, I suspect the color rendering has gotten better. Bright white LED's are always a problem. It infuriates me to no end they keep sticking them on car lights now.
Also, since the eye patch seems to reduce the eye strain when using the phone, does this mean I have Binocular Vision Dysfuction? Or is it just the phone itself causing the problem?
You likely have BVD that the phone display is triggering.
Is it simply a case of covering the dominant eye so the other eye works harder and then using a device that causes issues for a few minutes each day, increasing each day?
Don't worry about dominant v non dominant, just try each eye separately and find which one works better for you. Then patch that eye whenever you are using a problematic device.
Don't worry about timing or how long to wear it or "curing" anything, if it gets better it will get better but the primary goal is to live a pain free life. If you are never cured and need to wear a patch for the rest of your life when using these devices, so be it.
i really want to try neurolens i have a hope it could help me
they are just branded, overpriced prismatic lenses that any eyeglass shop can make for you.
I think its only logical to assume that the dominant eye should be stronger and its the non-dominant eye causing the problems, but what if it is the brain favoring the dominant eye causing the problem somehow? What if the dominant eye actually has a problem.
I think it is a waste of time to try and come up with some "logical to us" explanation involving eye dominance. Who cares. Results are what matter. You only have 2 eyes, it takes no time to test each and see what works best for you. It is eminently clear among the people on this board that there are many, many permutations of this disorder and everyone is unique. Some people have issues with PWN and flicker, I have zero problems with them, I have big problems with color and CCRI, other people have no problem with that, some people found relief patching their dominant eye, some found relief patching their non dominant eye. In the end, all that should matter is each individual finding relief that works for them.
Is it a miracle that it worked on me? Why? Is it because I am stubborn? Why are “eye specialists” saying that it only works on kids, is it science behind that statement and how do we tell them that’s wrong?
Any doctor or specialist thats says something like "This only works if you are under 15" is exaggerating. What they mean is it is most successful on younger people, and progressively less successful on older people, but certainly not impossible. While it is true that brain elasticy decreases as we age, it is an absolute falsehood that there is some "tollgate" age that renders brain learning impossible. I underwent significant nuerofeedback training in my 30's and saw the difference I was achieveing in my brainwaves right in front of me.
As for me I am still patching daily, and have noticed my underlying ability to look at a screen without a patch and not get triggered has become wildly variable as of late, some days it regresses back to a fraction of a second, some days I can get up to several minutes. Personally I don't care to much, if I have to wear an eye patch whenever I am using a display for the rest of my life, then thats what I'll do. Millions of people around the world who have suffered eye injuries wear eye patches all day every day and get along just fine.
ensete they are just branded, overpriced prismatic lenses that any eyeglass shop can make for you.
They didn't work for me and I agree they are overpriced, especially because insurances don't (neither vision nor medical) cover it.
However, they do offer a money back guarantee (check with your optometrist) if they don't work, which may not come with regular prism glasses, so there is that to consider.
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I actually had a phone call with the co-founder of Neurolens. He was very nice and willing to help as Neurolens is not available in my region. He listend to my symptoms and did the best he could to do some tests over the phone. He said that there is also a good chance BVD/wrong prescription is my issue. Suggested i go and see if some prism glasses could work for me, so this is my next step at least.
One main point he told me is that there is zero link between pain/ level of High and how Big the eye misalignment is. So someone with huge misalignment Might have No issues whereas someone with minor Can be unable to use screens
I've read some places where people call Neruolens a scam and that they are money hungry. But at least their Co-founder was nice enough to spend 30 min on a phone with a guy from Europe he has never met for free to help the best he could.
Regarding eye focus issues, I've noticed that the focal plane is different depending on what shade the pixel is. If the pixel black then the eye focuses on the LCD panel itself. If the pixel is white the eye focuses through the the now transparent LCD panel and focuses on the backlight layers. And mid tones are kind of a murky in between. But I've noticed that in many cases when looking at dark things on a white background, like text, my eyes try to focus on the backlight instead of the LCD panel.
What you can try is to have a screen with some dark content but on a majority white colored background, like text. Then get really close to the monitor and focus on an upper corner at a really steep side angle, steep enough to where the edge of the backlight layers very clearly look to be behind the LCD panel which now looks like a very discreet front layer. It'll look somewhat like a stained glass window. This should be what the monitor looks like while in normal usage but it doesn't. So something weird is going on with the interaction between the LCD panel and backlight layers to make the eye have a lot of trouble understanding what it's looking at and to find what to focus on.
CrestfallDreaming One main point he told me is that there is zero link between pain/ level of High and how Big the eye misalignment is. So someone with huge misalignment Might have No issues whereas someone with minor Can be unable to use screens
+1
mike how bad was your dry eye issues before having succes’s with patching and how is level of dry eye issues now?
CrestfallDreaming I would say much better.
My problems with red and hurting eyes was quite bad. But was it dry eyes? Maybe some!? I have done LASIK, after that many people get dry eyes. I haven’t found any eye drops that works for me. So I am not sure if it was dry eyes, or just hurting.
mike so u never had any dry eye tests ? But now you don't have to use dropsnat PC or when sleeping?
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chahahc This is really interesting, and would tie into the BVD angle. If each individual eyes focusing on different layers of the LCD, that would cause the eyes to attempt to adjust back into focus, even through the image itself is not out of focus. This adjustment effort would activate facial muscles on the side of your head and browline, which is the primary path of the supraorbital branch of your trigeminal nerve (which I suspect is the central nerve responsible for our symptoms), constricting them and impacting the nerve.
I have some worrying experiences as of late, the patching seems to be getting less effective. Or, more specifically, my ability to go from patched - unpatched is causing me symptoms. I did just have sinus surgery 3 weeks ago, so my hope is that all the healing still going on in my head is what is responsible for this increased sensitivity and in a few more weeks it will get back to normal patching behavior. Nothing I can do but wait and see.
Mike, did your multi year experience through this have ups and downs as far as your sensitivities went, or was it a fairly linear progression?
CrestfallDreaming I've read some places where people call Neruolens a scam
I don't think they are a "scam", they jut seem to be overpriced versions of prism lenses you can already get for cheaper. They seem to be charging a lot of $$ for the brand name. But if they work for you, by all means use them. If they have a money back garauntee as ryans said, it cant hurt to try.
CrestfallDreaming I have done dry eye tests, and had problems with keeping tears. But I don’t know how big the problem is for me, it’s maybe normal for a person who have done a LASIK with dry eyes.
Late in the evening when my eyes hurt little after many hours behind screens, was it because of tired eyes, dry eyes or something else? Can dry eyes be a side effect of tired eye muscles?
ensete I have some worrying experiences as of late, the patching seems to be getting less effective. Or, more specifically, my ability to go from patched - unpatched is causing me symptoms. I did just have sinus surgery 3 weeks ago, so my hope is that all the healing still going on in my head is what is responsible for this increased sensitivity and in a few more weeks it will get back to normal patching behavior. Nothing I can do but wait and see.
This is interesting. First question, why did you do a sinus surgery? Second question, is this happening after the surgery?
When I look at screens my sinus swell up, i took medicine for that, and because of the medicine my eyes didn’t hurt so much. So if you have changed something with your sinus it can affect how your eyes feels.
ensete Mike, did your multi year experience through this have ups and downs as far as your sensitivities went, or was it a fairly linear progression?
It was more like a staircase, first from a low level I took a huge step. Then no progress for months. Then a smaller step, and no progress for a long time. I gave up a few times. But don’t give up if you fall down a step.
ensete I don't think they are a "scam", they jut seem to be overpriced versions of prism lenses you can already get for cheaper. They seem to be charging a lot of $$ for the brand name. But if they work for you, by all means use them. If they have a money back garauntee as ryans said, it cant hurt to try.
+1
mike I struggle a lot with dry eye and to me the question is what comes first, dry eye which leads to eye strain or eye strain which leads to dry eye
Interesting. I'm in no way knowledgeable about the kind of physiology involved in this.
Subjectively to me the closest thing I can describe trying to focus on an lcd monitor is like those magic eye pictures that were on the back of cereal boxes way back when. Sometimes you just try and try but the image stays "two dimensional" and you can't differentiate the lcd panel from the backlight. And then other times it seems your brain just somehow locks on and you can clearly see the three dimensionality of the transparent lcd panel and the backlight. It seems that the less flickering issues there are the easier it is for my brain to achieve this.
CrestfallDreaming for me I would say eye strain, and because of that dry eyes.
My eyes is how I see the world and how I make a living
Now why would I put them in harms way by trying to make them get used to inferior screens which manufacturers like to shove into our faces?
This is not the way
Fenkins As I just said another thread...
While I'm glad you're feeling better I see dealing with this problem as two sided. One side of it involves researching and obtaining devices that don't aggravate potentially impaired eyes or nervous system (certain problems like PWM, color spectrum and blue light can be quantified and potentially investigated), and the other being that some "health" changes may improve your tolerance for visual issues. To give an analogy even if you could improve your skin, you wouldn't stick a burning cigarette on your hand for 12 hours a day
ryans Just wondering if this is a Doctor that Dr. Debby Feinberg trained (see here for those Doctors)?
I had not updated on the second part of the eye examination by the neuro-optometrist. It consisted of tests I had never taken before, such as following targets / reading a text while having my eyes tracked by a camera, testing my peripheral vision, etc. My results were within the norm. As a term of comparison, I was shown how different the test results are for patients who have undergone concussions, traumatic brain injuries, ischemia, etc., or suffer of Parkinson disease. I was diagnosed only with esophoria.
Actually it's not the screens which are inferior, it's the way the hardware developers program the video card to output the image to the display. In order for the marketers to be able to claim that their particular phone or laptop shows billions (10 bit) of colors, the developers have programmed the video card to flip the colors of the individual pixels rapidly from one color to another, to simulate the color in between. Yes, the brain will be fooled and does not even see the flickering at all, but the eyes will strain from the flickering nevertheless.
Have you noticed how the rise of the dark theme craze conincided with the rise of eye straining devices? Long time I didn't undestand why people preferred dark theme so much, until I upgraded from my 2013 MBP to 2019 MBP in 2020. After 2 days of using it I felt that my eyes started to hurt every time I used it. I noticed that the pain started even after a minute of using it. That's how I found ledstrain.org. Eventually I found SwitchResX and switched from "Billions of colors" to "Millions of colors", and switched to sRGB, and used f.lux, and applied matte screen protector. After that it was a lot more usable but not so much as for example my HP Elitebook 820 G3 which gives me zero problems with eyes. Now I am back on my trusty 2013 MBP because the HP was too slow.
By the way, you can make the same screen which previously did not affect your eyes at all, make your eyeballs feel they are burning from behind by attaching the display to a video card which employs temporal dithering. And why it happens? It's to impress you with wider color range, because if two screens are side by side in the store and the rep says "this one is capable of showing more colors and costs the same", which one would you pick? I myself cannot distinguish between millions of colors and billions of colors, without looking the same image side by side but I can distinguish which one uses temporal dithering without any reference in just a few seconds.