your health
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.
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martin Write me the state or city where you live and Ill ask my optometrist to recommend someone reliable in that area.
Hi @martin , I know it is some time now since this was offered but if your optometrist would know a good one in Berlin Germany that would be awesome. Thanks!
Edit 1 month later: Ok, went to an optometrist close to my place and she also checked for convergence. This does not seem to be my issue. So no need to check for one @martin
Came across a computer programmer with CI https://ianlandsman.com/2015/02/27/convergence-insufficiency/
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deepflame I can ask but they are really busy now, its hard for me to even get them to reply to me. But you can write in english here - https://www.vysetreni-zraku.cz/ and they should be able to reply and recommend some place that they trust. If it was a quick check Id go elsewehere. Check the article.
ryans This is great. Proves that you really need to see someone who does proper testing and that 5
min examination in an office really wont do.
I have been doing my exercises half-wrong for the last two months, strenghtening the already strong eye muscles and not the weak ones. I had to start over with half of it and I must say, it really does something even so soon. My camera display since 2 weeks ago when I started does not give me the stinging pain anymore, it changed into a pressure and even that takes longer to develop than before. I hope by the end of the therapy all pressure/pain will be gone. Also the proper exercises give me nausea, headaches, eye pain and when I overdone it, all displays were painful just like when I was exposed only to the painful ones for too long. I am curious how it will progress now.
In simple terms the exercises are a way of building maximum range of eye motion while maintaining fusion (single image, no double vision) in both convergence and divergence (one is usually overpowered or weak or more combinations). It is like if you cant extend your arm due to wrong muscle tension and do exercises to balance it out.
martin deepflame I can ask but they are really busy now, its hard for me to even get them to reply to me. But you can write in english here - https://www.vysetreni-zraku.cz/ and they should be able to reply and recommend some place that they trust. If it was a quick check Id go elsewehere. Check the article.
Thanks Martin, but I think I have "solved" the main problem already. I got new glasses now with blue light filter and less grades that makes focusing close-up easier (I am near-sighted). In addition I got an old laptop that does not dither at all under Windows 7. So I am pretty happy currently and would not need anything in that direction anymore. But thanks a lot for answering!
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Hey guys,
I wanted to come up with a summary of my health topics so far. However I've to say that it is ridiculous.
So this are my main health problems:
- eyestrain (of course)
- bruxismn - grinding my teeth
- sleeping problems - sometimes I am fully awake after 2hours of sleep - maybe due to the bruxismn
- ENT Problems, especially breathing truth the right nostril and pain in the right frontal sinus
- sometimes a high amount of "stress" in the body, especially on heavy bruxismn and bad sleep nights
- a permanent activated immune system (doctors told me that) - the body is fighting against something
These problems weren't here at once, they all appeared with a distance of some years, however they seem to be highly connected. Also I know that many of you suffer from the same things as me and as a result I think that we shouldn't see the eyestrain issue as an isolated discomfort.
So with some extended bloodtest some special doctors told me that my immune system is permanentely working and that the body is fighting against something. However (and thats ridicolous) nobody could tell me so far against what my body is fighting. As a result I am a special case under the special cases who visit this mentionend doctors.
2 years ago I had two surgeries and they removed my tonsils and corrected my nasal septum. I had a dental brace for 3 years and now I'm doing a special orthodontia therapy in order to correct the bruxism. Also I'm doing my eye excercices (convergence) for 4 months now.
Only these eye excercices helped a little bit, but not as much as I hoped.
It is not a hashimoto or any other auto immune disease. A doctor meant that I'm not far away from the chronic fatigue syndrome caused by the Epstein–Barr virus, however this diagnose is some kind of inconsistend between two different tests. Another theory is that there is a foreign material in my body which causes this problems. So maybe I'll doing a Lymphocyte transformation test which can tell me if the composit materials of my dental fillings are problematic.
This theory came up because the bruxismn started 2 months after I got my first composit dental fillings and the eyestrain occured the first time three-fourths a year after that (I purchased a new notebook). Before that time I never had a bruxismn or such heavy eye problems at all. However it's only a idea and maybe there is another root cause of this.
So I am pretty sure about that there is a health root cause of the eyestrain which makes us more sensitive to all of the different display and graphcis technologies.
Some of us have more or less additionally health issues, but there is a big connection.
I agree, I would expect it to be along the lines of immune system aggravation leading to brain or optic nerve inflammation. An example of this, giardia, an intestinal parasite, can trigger immune system mediated retinal inflammation.
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Good point with the parasite.
Anyone else is noticing that my mentionend symptoms occur in phases? There are "good"/bad phases and very bad phases where eyestrain is worse and sleep quality is also bad.
Yesterday was such a bad sleeping night. If I did not know better, I would say that demons are obsessing me at such nights ;-)
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martin
"Therefore my conlcusion so far is that I really do lack MPOD (macular pigment optical density) in my retina, and my retinas cannot filter out blue light." You should measure to have sure. So you can have sure, or else you could be mesguided. We have to be careful making conclusions, based on simple results. There are multiple variables.
I am thinking more and more, that the majority of problems are flickering related. But different kinds of flickering. Some dithering, color flickering, contrast flickering, etc. Some people are troubled by flickering on blue spectrum. So it's the photoreceptors either blue cones or RGPC's ganglion cells that are the sensitive. Maybe people have differente photo-receptors sensitivities. So for some people the blue light problems only occurs with flickering.
1- People only affected by flicklering.
2- People affected by flickering when blue spectrum is high. (different photo-receptors affected the number 1 group).
Do you have any LED display that dont cause you problems? Maybe on LED that dont have any substantial flicker of any sort?
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?
Not 100% but I don't think OLEDs need to use inversion, that's just LCD. OLED phones typically have quite harsh PWM though. See the link below for a fairly comprehensive PWM ranking.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-Smartphones-and-Tablets-with-PWM.163979.0.html
I don't know if it that harsh. Depends on people. Its sinusoidal waveform which is much softer then digital waveform.
I noticed with my peripheral vision, and it's annoying but I don't feel pain. At least immediately. Never tried watching to OLED for long times.