Harrison Actually I forgot to mention a pretty important thing...almost at the same time I received the iMac, I got an inflammatory autoimmune disease. I don't know if there is a link to the iMac issues I have simply because both the computer and the disease arrived at the same time.
What is interesting though is that watching TV now seems to have become a demanding task, colours seems aggressive and unnatural, and I cannot focus very well when people move quickly on the screen. I've had this TV (VA panel, LED direct backlight, 4K) for a year now but I barely used it until recently so again the comparison with before the autoimmune disease is difficult...but I don't seem to remember having the feeling that watching this TV was a difficult task before...

    Harrison However shortly after doing the convergence training screens are much more comfortable, but the effect doesn't remain.

    Are you doing exercises with an optometrist or on your own? To me, this sounds like the exercises are working, but maybe you are not doing them as "precise" as an optometrist would have you do?

        Could anyone let me know how checking convergence issues is performed by optometrist / ophthalmologist? Does it include relaxing the eyes somehow and observing how they look in their natural (not focused) position, or just checking whether eyes focus properly on different objects?

          andc Write me the state or city where you live and Ill ask my optometrist to recommend someone reliable in that area.

          Harrison Two months might not be enough by far. Ive been told I will be able to see results after 4 months tops. Its like working out or exercising - new muscle tissue and innervation is being built. I also do it under supervision (we share online excel with results and times and notes) and the optometrist adjusts the exercises by that progress. You really have to do exactly whats fixing YOUR issue, otherwise it wont work. But seeing that it helps already means you might be on a good path and it might be the reason for the trouble.
          Also I wanna stress here again that I also train for accomodation, and that happens with an eye patch for one eye at a time only. So you cant rule out this issue by using eyepatch and seeing if you have eyestrain with it or not - the feeling from this exercise is different - burning in the eyes, more than strain.

                martin Write me the state or city where you live and Ill ask my optometrist to recommend someone reliable in that area.

                Did you ask about Vancouver, Canada or near Bellingham/Seattle Washington, USA? (for myself)

                    martin
                    Thanks, but I'm in Europe so it probably won't work for me.

                        andc He lives in the Czech Republic, so he might be able to find someone 🙂

                          andc You don't need a specialist to check if this is an issue. My recent normal optometrists visits all were able to confirm I had a slight vertical convergence issue (that I have known about my entire life) but in my case it's irrelevant as I have monovision anyway (one eye sees at a distance and one up close). I learned this when young and trying to wear glasses that corrected the close eye for distance as well and things were double and blurry. It's never been an issues for me and is not the cause of my eye strain as demonstrated by the fact I don't get strain on older devices AND correcting the vision and imbalance doesn't help the strain...so monovision is still working fine for me in all instances and irrelevant to the strain.

                          Point is if you got to a normal optometrist or two and ask to be checked for it they can easily do it with that standard machine they put in front of you when you read eye charts. No sense in going down this road if you have no convergence or accommodation issues at all as eye therapy is very expensive, takes a long time, and is of dubious benefit often. If you have a clear eye problem and want to try there is no health reason NOT to...but I know how desperation gets you to put hope in things and spend lots of money and the letdown can be huge. Since this is not a fast treatment I'd not waste my time and money if I had no documented issue. It's not some hidden problem...you either have it or you don't and prism glasses (that any optometrist can do fine) can tell you right away if it's your eye strain issue.

                              martin Write me the state or city where you live and Ill ask my optometrist to recommend someone reliable in that area.

                              Can you also ask about New York City area?

                                  andc Its easier in and around Europe as they are more connected with my specialist.

                                  JTL Ill ask about that area.

                                  ryans Also.

                                  hpst The treatment cost me close to nothing so far, but the prices probably vary from country to country. So far including the glasses its been about 367 dollars, most of it being the glasses price. It wont cost me more than another 90 dollars before the training is finished. But I have been lucky to find a guy who is also young, interested in this issue and research around it and what new understanding it may bring into his field.
                                  Theres of course no point to waste money in traning if the glasses they can make do not improve the situation - so thats a good first step. For me they improved it from migraines to discomfort from longer use, meaning there is some connection. And to stress it - they are not all around solution, their features are strengthened to the point that I cannot see farther than 1m with them sharply, it was crafted purely to test the issue. The guy I see about this is a specialist and he told me only about another 2-10 ppl in this country take the field seriously enough to figure this out. So I think who you run into matters a lot.

                                  If that doesnt work, or help only partially, then it is -
                                  1. waiting for results for Lyme disease (had to pay for that too, cost me as much as the whole eye training)
                                  2. getting more precise oscilloscope to measure all I can
                                  3. trying to get my hands on a sprectrometer to measure light spectrum on all devices and bulbs to see whats up
                                  4. getting possible new drugs for migraine
                                  5. getting all neck muscles balanced and fixed (scm, scaleni, all the classical migraine trigger points)
                                  6. getting media attention through lightaware.org that this issue is serious
                                  7. Hoping someone makes a color e ink
                                  8. Moving to a tropical island and teaching surfing, or joining an amazon tribe, never to see displays again

                                  Id also like to figure out if I can get an iphone thats troublesome, remove its backlight someohow and still make it run, so I can test if it could be only the backlight.

                                            martin Thanks! I see it's possible to have Lyme for a long time and not get treated https://www.today.com/health/ticked-10-years-living-lyme-disease-2D80555054

                                            https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/01/the-lyme-wars

                                            https://www.amazon.com/Better-Solving-Mystery-Chronic-Disease/dp/1250019400

                                            https://lymeconnection.org/news_publications/meet_the_lyme_disease_experts.html/title/dr-richard-horowitz-latest-treatments-in-lyme-disease

                                            • andc replied to this.

                                                I made a short survey about Daily Life/Health/Led Strain Problems. Maybe it will allow to find some common patterns in daily life of people with led strain problems. That could work as additional triggers for led issues.
                                                Survey thread: https://ledstrain.org/d/404-short-led-strain-daily-life-surv
                                                Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdh1-dNpMHlKDFwb_eVttWZ_rrVrh_hOMLd15GtGtVVb-hrJQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
                                                Survey is very simple so any feedback and criticism are welcome.

                                                ryans @martin

                                                Hey, I'm doing the excercices on my own under the instructions from my optometrist. Last week we decided to vary my excercies in order to get more eye flexibility. Moreover he also told me, that I have to do the excercices for at least 6 months.

                                                    ryans
                                                    That's right - Lyme is a very sneaky disease. It can cause almost any type of issue, is hard to be diagnosed (there seems to be no 100% sure way of testing it) and can even hide for many years within one's body, so you may think you're cured and it will get back after several years.
                                                    On top of that it's cured by a long antibiotics therapy (1 month or longer), which may end up in other issues if you don't follow the diet, or don't use probiotics. If it wasn't enough during this therapy you may start to feel much worse due to Herx effect. I don't recommend it to anyone 😉

                                                      WOW! I just had one of these occur. My second one this year:

                                                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillating_scotoma
                                                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scintillating_zigzag_scotoma.gif

                                                      During my lunch break at work today, I went pretty hard on a flight of 200 stairs with a pretty steep incline, 5 sets, and it was also a pretty nice and sunny day. I'm not sure whether I overexerted myself, or if it was the bright sun.

                                                      The other time this happened this year was in the spring when the NHL playoffs were on, lol. I drove to my parents house to watch a game and there was a low sun as it was spring at the time. While watching the game on my dad's OLED TV (The same one as I presented here: https://ledstrain.org/d/175-oled-tv-same-issues/91), one of these started to happen halfway in. However, the sun was setting at the time and as very bright over the horizon out of my peripheral vision. I thought the OLED TV had done it, since the jury was still kind of out on it, but I didn't have any LED exposure today. Also, I am usually able to watch a 3 hour sporting event without much difficulty on the OLED TV.

                                                      What's strange about these phenomenon is I don't get any headache or ill-effects afterwards. The "attack" is pretty intense and lasts about 20-30 minutes, and then it spreads to the corners and ends. The "Signs and symptoms" describes the issue exactly. I had this very bright flashing squirmy wormy in my central vision after coming back from my Stairmeggon lunch break and grabbing my lunch bag out of the fridge. It was very intense at first, then started to spread to the corners, almost like spreading butter on bread. Once it had migrated more to the corners, my central vision was clear again, and I could read again, but then the peripheral was out. At it's worst point, I'm almost completely blind in one eye for a few minutes (left eye) until it spreads out of the way.

                                                      If I recall correctly, I've had these my whole life, even since a kid, but I just thought they were normal and that everyone got them. I must say, although a bit scary, they are one heck of a fascinating phenomenon! Just another oddity to throw into the enigma!

                                                        Interesting, that just proves that many of us indeed may be migraine sufferers with specific triggers. Which kinda sucks, as those triggers right now seem to be in all tech.
                                                        I got checked for Lyme disease, best test there is (westernblot) and interpretd by a friend doctor, its negative, I do not have Lyme, nor have I ever had it.
                                                        The theory on the website about visual center processing being attacked by some virus is still interesting to me. I will finish the visual therapy and see what happens after.

                                                        Harrison Yes, same here, 4 months to see any change, 6 to see possible cure just like with the glasses. Maybe more. I dont care, Ill do it as long as I have to if it helps.

                                                          MagnuM It may be worth getting your eye pressure checked out - I had these symptoms which turned out to be due to high interocular pressure.

                                                          Not saying that's happening in your case, but something to rule out.

                                                              diop

                                                              Hey, measuring the eye pressure is usually done every time you visit an eye doctor in my homeland. It was measuerd many many times and if there was a problem, I'll know that.

                                                                14 days later

                                                                What do you think of this phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex?
                                                                It makes you sneeze shortly after you are exposed to bright sunlight and then the reflex stops for 24 hours. The theories say the cause may be that the optical nerve is unusually close to the trigeminal nerve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigeminal_nerve). Plus a statistical significant part of the "sufferers" have a nasal septum deviation.

                                                                Might this be a valid theory why some (many?) of us react to flicker? Because the optical nerve is unusually close to some other nerve, and so the other nerve gets electrical signals which it shouldn't?
                                                                The German entry of the photic sneeze reflex says sudden brightness causes many action potentials to be conducted over the optical nerve, triggering the trigeminal nerve (which they shouldn't) -> sneezeing.
                                                                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential: "In physiology, an action potential occurs when the membrane potential of a specific axon location rapidly rises and falls" - which is probably exactly what happens when exposed to flicker.

                                                                  KM I've had the sneeze with sunlight problem even before I had this "problem".

                                                                  I've heard some studies claim it's related to photosensitive epilepsy, but that could be me remembering wrong.

                                                                    dev