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  • Sea salt, externally applied -- the best thing I've found so far

I doubt the salt is doing anything other than holding the water on your skin longer, leading to an extended evaporative effect, which cools the skin longer. Thats probably where your relief is coming from.

    ensete Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts. I realize the mechanism of the sea salt is as yet unclear, but I am sure it is quite different from simply holding water on the skin leading to cooler skin. My screen-use symptoms are very strong and debilitating, and the effect of the sea salt is remarkable, to the extent that when I have it on my forehead, I get absolutely no symptoms at all, for hours at a time. I can't imagine that keeping my forehead continually wet, with water alone, or that simply having cooler skin on my forehead, would have such an effect. But thanks again for sharing your thoughts and contributing to the discussion and exploration of the "sea salt phenomenon" -- all ideas and sharing-of-experiences are of course very much welcome!

      I'm sorry, but this is yet again one of those "solutions" that lower our chances to achieve any real solution.

      Imagine a doctor or scientist investigating this topic and reading that people smack gobs of sea salt to their forehead, which helps them tolerate screens better.

      Yeah, lets all go to a customer meeting and in the middle slap a moist ball of sea salt to the forehead, saying, "this help me tolerate LCD screens"

        Maxx Thanks for your input. Yes, this is the obstacle: the strangeness of the method, both in its appearance and in its unclear mechanism of action. This is why I expect some people will probably read my original post and won't bother trying it because it seems so odd.

        What I would suggest would be to simply: give it a try. See if it helps you, and report back.

        If this helps others anywhere close to as much as it has helped (and is helping) me, it would be major. And the only thing to lose would be the couple dollars spent on the package of sea salt, and a bit of salt on the floor.

        As for the doctors and scientists, they certainly haven't helped us much yet. Rather than wait for them, I'd prefer to have something that works now. And for me (and for one other poster here so far), this works now.

        I see this as one of two sides. One being medical related experiments to attempt to mitigate issues related to eyestrain and related phenomena, the other being empirical "triggers" of this issue (like dithering/FRC, PWM or other physical properties of LCD panels) that still exist and should still be solved.

        Speaking from experience, potentially having something attempting to interfere with normal visual processing when eyes are damaged and working around the issue is probably just "buying time" until you become more sensitive, at which point certain workarounds are moot.

        It's important we don't conflate the two when attempting to investigate the technical causes of this issue and in communication with other stakeholders (like in communication with OEMs)

          JTL Speaking from experience, potentially having something attempting to interfere with normal visual processing when eyes are damaged and working around the issue is probably just "buying time" until you become more sensitive, at which point certain workarounds are moot.

          Thanks for the interesting reflections. Just regarding your second paragraph: nothing would be interfering with normal visual processing here: the salt just goes on the forehead. (If the salt went into the eyes, that would interfere with vision!)

          It's also possible that the problem is not one of eye damage at all. Or that for some of us it is and for some of us it isn't.

          • JTL replied to this.

            daniels nothing would be interfering with normal visual processing here

            I was referring to the cause of "this issue" as being the problem interfering with visual processing and other things related to eyes. Not the salt.

              daniels I realize the mechanism of the sea salt is as yet unclear, but I am sure it is quite different from simply holding water on the skin leading to cooler skin

              Please explore! you could try the cooling patches or different kinds of salt, and observe if it helps.

                Seagull Please explore! you could try the cooling patches or different kinds of salt, and observe if it helps.

                Thanks, this is definitely worth exploring! The scientific mindset of experimenting systematically would be an excellent one here. As for me, for the moment I've found what works very well, and don't enjoy getting the symptoms, so I'm not too eager at the moment to experiment for the sake of "research" and finding out more. My approach is purely pragmatic right now. But if anyone else is interested in experimenting in this way, it would indeed be fabulous.

                daniels

                Try a menthol rub on your forehead and see if you get the same effect. There are several "anti migraine" stick that are sold OTC that "work" by evaporation cooling the skin.

                got zero effect with mortons sea salt, but good effect with liquid magnesium drops(evaporated seawater)

                  JTL I get it, but we'll never be able to control the lights in our extended environments on an ongoing basis, so we'll need hacks like this one to cope.

                  reaganry got zero effect with mortons sea salt, but good effect with liquid magnesium drops(evaporated seawater)

                  Thanks for trying and reporting back. I did try for a time with some Korean sea salt that I bought from an Asian grocery store, and the effect was not particularly good. I have been using, and having success with, what are probably higher quality, purer sea salts. Very interesting about the liquid magnesium!

                    daniels Have you tried a non salt based evaporative test? It would be interesting to see if it was something in the salt itself that is helping you, or an effect the salt is having that could be replicated with a non salt product that would create the same effect

                      ensete Have you tried a non salt based evaporative test? It would be interesting to see if it was something in the salt itself that is helping you, or an effect the salt is having that could be replicated with a non salt product that would create the same effect

                      Yes, this would a great thing to test. I'm a bit hesitant right now to do much more testing, since if what I am testing doesn't work, though it will have advanced knowledge on the subject, I will have suffered unpleasant symptoms. That's why I'm sticking to the sea salt paste at the moment. Some of my reluctance is probably due to several recent months of enduring the symptoms, before I found that I could use the sea salt preventatively. Perhaps I will eventually pluck up my courage and give it a go for the sake of research. Reaganry's suggestion of the liquid magnesium in particular intrigues me, and would be less messy, and more amenable to use in public, than the salt. Note by the way that I have had success in the past with baking soda, "curatively," though have not yet tried it preventatively.

                      dev