your health

JTL They help even when you are not high?

ryans Correct

I'm busy working on my own projects right now but email me and I'll give you a rundown.

JTL This is a transition period. There are people working on labeling products(LED bulbs, screens etc.) as flicker free.

Ofcourse you cannot only live in your own controlled environment. But making sure the devices where you spend more time(work and home) are flicker free will reduce the problems occurrence significantly.

Also in the past we used to have mercury lamps for street lighting and CCFL backlights which were not as big of a problem.

Also most LED street lights are flicker free mostly because they have enough room to fit big high quality transformers. It's just that the light is too blue, but that won't give you headaches right away, it will just suppress the normal release of melatonin. So the problems will come from not being able to sleep.

ryans

ryans I agree, it's a shame there's no medication, glasses, or therapy that allows us to tolerate these lights. Wonder if anyone has just gotten used to it through repeated
exposure?

You cannot get used to these lights/displays. The only solution is to make sure you are surrounded by flicker free lights/displays where you spend most of your time.

I am compiling a list of safe LED bulbs and also safe displays/smartphones. It is a work in progress, I will share later.

Just a thought. It seems that many of us on here are somewhat tech savvy. This makes me think there are more sufferers out there who do have LED strain from devices, their concerns are dismissed by their doctors, and they just suffer.

ryans I noticed that too. Either that, or our sensitivity is connected to the fact that we are tech savvy, which can only happen if you spend a lot of your life in front of the computers. Also, but that is a FAR stretch, a lot of tech savvy people are mildly or full on autistic. I dont think I am, but IRLEN is often connected to autism. I am very good with my social life tho, so, not sure.

Does anyone in your family, or related to you, have the same issues? In mine noone. So I am not sure about genetic origin of the problem here.

martin Most people have these problems but you will never become aware of them if for exemple you work mostly outside or in enviroments with a lot of natural light.

My girlfriend for example thought I was a bit crazy and then I put her Galaxy A3 in low brightness, turned of most ambient light and told her to surf the web on her phone for an hour or so. After an hour she got a migraine. Now she understands 🙂

Also if you have a light bulb that you know causes problems you should test it on people. You will notice after a while that they start scratching their eyes etc.

martin Irlen is quite literally the sensitivity to certain color wavelengths. I have no idea why the diagnosis is considered "controversial". I think there is something to it, but I haven't been able to find any color-blocking lenses that do the trick yet. Just brightness at 0%, color temperature Warm, and f.lux @ 5000K has been my godsend.

But most importantly, I'm still using a Dell U2410 (LCD). I can't use LEDs at all - I get a sharp headache within minutes that can last for days. Also, if I crank the brightness settings of my LCD up, and change the color temperature to a cooler setting, the symptoms will slowly return (I do this when working on color-sensitive graphics work, and I literally just put up with the pain before reverting back after I'm done).

And most strangely of all, I'm fine with OLED TVs. I heard OLED has a much less pronounced spike of blue light in it though.

Can you see why I'm currently on the blue light sensitivity theory, based on my own personal experience?

JTL The same thing happened to me 10-11 years ago!

MagnuM

MagnuM But most importantly, I'm still using a Dell U2410 (LCD). I can't use LEDs at all - I get a sharp headache within minutes that can last for days. Also, if I crank the brightness settings of my LCD up, and change the color temperature to a cooler setting, the symptoms will slowly return (I do this when working on color-sensitive graphics work, and I literally just put up with the pain before reverting back after I'm done).

LED backlit you mean

MagnuM And most strangely of all, I'm fine with OLED TVs. I heard OLED has a much less pronounced spike of blue light in it though.

OLED refers to the pixel itself being an LED, there is no LCD. Wait for OLED monitors to become commonplace and you should be good 😃

MagnuM i dont know about oled tv's, but oled's smartphone, dont really have lower spikes of blue spectrum. They might slighty 10nm right sifhted.
What they have usually is more intense green and red intensities spikes. So more balanced.

Also maybe OLED's have less flickering. I think that backlights have lots of flickering. Maybe inversion or other related stuff. Maybe
OlED dont have that problem.

Have you tried IPhone XS or Galaxy S9?

JTL Do they have any OLED computer monitors yet?

MagnuM Not really. Dell has one for ~$3000 USD but it has some panel quality issues and PWM flicker, among other things.

I'd wait. If it was perfect I'd buy one now, but nope.

Anyone have a way easier time in the summer? I don't think it's due to dryness. I run a humidifier in the winter and that helps some, but it's not enough. I think it's due to prolonged darkness in the winter sensitizes your eyes.

I don't think the sun solves any underlying problem, it just desensitizes your eyes a bit, even when in a dark room. A day out in the sun has always given me some extra leeway in using problematic devices that night.

This has always struck me as a bit odd because sunlight contains so much blue and uv light. It seems healing, and wearing sunglasses seems to negate this positive effect. I've taken to wearing a baseball cap and only wear sunglasses if there is sharp glare or reflections, like when driving.

degen Maybe you also spend more time outdoors in the summer, and more time indoors in the winter?

degen I do not. However sungazing especially later in the day before susnet is a recommended natural way to build tolerance for photophobia. Blue light and UV light are healthy, just as sun in general. They might just not be what you need before sleep according to some studies.
Sunglasses are a nice fashion accesory, but I think theyre not really essential to life at all. A lot of things like that (protection from sun, cold etc...) just make people weak in the long run in my opinion.
However, sun has an even spectrum of colors, LEDs do not. Sun also does not flicker. So theres that too.
I think you can train your body to become stronger to any kind of stressors. However I still have not figured out whether that would be desirable in case of flicker or not. Either we who have this problem are weaker and could use that, or actually more perceptive and others are not.
Migraines however, are known to be an overly protective reaction to stressors that might not be stressful to most. Similar to allergies.

What I am trying to do right now is to research migraines to see some natural remedies, training or cures for them, as well as continue to research whats wrong with the tech that gives me the trouble as compared to the one that does not.

If you feel like researching this more, you can read about Bates method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method or Meir Schneider. Of course, these things take a lot of self work, instead of prescription and comfort, and might be very individual, so its up to everyone personally to take up such task and see for themselves. It can be bullshit as a lot of things out there, or the bullshit can be companies that make eyewear paying for studies "proving" you need to buy their products.
Since we have already a good experience here with companies making shit products and making you pay for them, I guess we might be on the same level here.
I have a general rule for this - whenever someone tells me I can improve my condition by a lot of self work, trouble, discomfort and challenging myself, but it does not have to cost me any money, I believe him more over someone who tries to sell me remedies.

martin Sunglasses are a nice fashion accesory, but I think theyre not really essential to life at all

Uh. So you don't get too much UV light in your eyes from looking too close at the sun and damaging your eyes?

and to quote the article.

Avoidance of conventional treatment

One of the greatest potential dangers of faith in the Bates method is that a believer may be disinclined to seek medical advice regarding what could be a sight-threatening condition requiring prompt treatment, such as glaucoma.[4] Also, children with vision problems may require early attention by a professional in order to successfully prevent lazy eye. Such treatment may include exercises, but which are different from those associated with the Bates method, and parents who subscribe to Bates' ideas may delay seeking conventional care until it is too late.[9] It may further be necessary for a child at risk of developing lazy eye to wear the proper correction.[47]

Don't get me wrong, a lot of charlatans and scammers sell overpriced blue light blocking glasses, etc.

I don't buy into Bates really, but a few things have grown out of it that have have been validated over time. For example, minus spherical correction does stimulate rearward axial growth of the eye.

I met an optometrist who has a great reputation for visual therapy for lazy eye, accommodative and convergence dysfunction etc. for kids mostly but also adults, and this was his opinion. Took the astigmatism completely out of my script and reduced my spherical correction. Those were the most comfortable and functional glasses I ever had. Unfortunately I moved too far to do the weekly vision therapy sessions.

As for the sun, the idea here is that there is a hormetic response. A large amount of sun and uv light will just end up giving you the equivalent of a sunburn on your eye. But limited daily exposure you build up some resilience through up-regulation of defensive genes. I don't advocate staring at the sun. Sunglasses are pretty mandatory much of the time due to all of the extra glare caused by pavement and cars. But think of natural environments like forests, clearings with grass, etc that humans evolutionary spent a lot of time in. The only protection you need is a wide-brimmed hat. It's the concrete jungle that makes sunglasses so mandatory. One of the best and scientifically validated examples of hormesis is that many of the benefits of exercise are completely eliminated when antioxidants are taken before or after a workout. Oxidative stress caused by workout is actually necessary for the benefits of that activity.

Personally I just think northern climates create a mild photophobia (happens to everyone after days of dark weather) that is much more problematic in myself due to existing sensitivities.

I think optometry as a whole is one of the most underdeveloped professions. Take a script to 5 different optometrist and you will get completely different scripts from each one, not even just margin of error level changes. There is a lot of variation between medical doctors but I don't think it's as bad as between optometrists. The practice of sitting in a chair and is A or B better now pony up for your $400 lenses is so flawed and should be completely scrapped for a more patient-centric approach where you figure out what you need from a lens on your own time doing activities that are relevant to you. Only exception here is when lenses are needed to meet a driving ministry test.

One more thing. I think those of us having to turn down the brightness on the screen to super low (I know not everyone here has that problem, but a significant number do), so very unfortunate. I mean, we have to make it very dim or else it causes headaches, but it's very bad for accommodation. The dim screen makes it way harder to focus and really stresses your ciliary muscles (and ciliary contractions are intrinsically linked to convergence). So what starts off with a sensitivity to certain technology, after a lot of strain and pain, becomes eventually a wide ranging asthenopia problem requiring complex refractive corrections. Often times, I can't make out a damn thing on the screen, I turn up the brightness and bam it's very readable (I always have text and ui elements huge so don't suggest that lol), but I have to turn it down shortly because of the oncoming headache.

My optometrist did find one interesting thing though. For a long time the pupil on my right eye has been larger than my left. When we did imaging you can see that the nerve into my right pupil is much smaller, meaning less parasympathetic input into that pupil. This impairs accommodation and pupil constriction. I have no idea how/when this happened because it wasn't like that when I was a kid. None of my family seems to have any idea when it happened so it seems to me like it came on gradually. I think me or others close to me would have noticed if one of my pupils suddenly got larger one day.

Has everyone had their thyroid (TSH and free T4) checked? Two users on this thread from AFB have hypothyroidism (Control+F for "thyroid"). Their symptoms seem to subside when appropriate doses of levothyroxine were given.
https://www.afb.org/forum/technology-talk/computer-monitors-and-dizziness/12

ryans Some of those posts are old (2001). Display and GPU technology is much different then it was 17 years ago.

I'm still interested in the medical implications of solving all our problems, as my vision continues to get better with the cannabis stuff and I'm starting to use screens more for the first time in 7 years.

ryans Yes, and he also mentioned the see sick syndrome - https://www.seesicksyndrome.com/
Has anyone here tried the exercises yet?
Im doing it now and I must say that it starts very similar head-pressure and headache symptoms like the screens that give me issues. It is the first time I was able to reproduce this feeling without using any computer.
It mentions photophobia, dizziness, anxiety, headaches... its visual motion allergy basically, which is what flicker and whatever else that new win 10 and some OS updates seem to be doing.
Also in the testimonials some people mention it in connection with TMJ etc., which were discussed here earlier too.

I will keep doing it and see if it can make me desensitized to the stressors completely.