your health
PuffyCloud I agree that there might be health consequences of flicker exposure over prolonged time, and that vision degeneration with aging might be caused by this. However that still does not explain why people like us also have headaches.
Yes we may be special in a way that we notice this compared to other people, but my vision is not perfect, I wear glasses, although corrected for right eye only. So we may also be people with neurological problems who get migraines from flickering light and certain wavelengths of LEDs, or both. Ideal solution is then to try to solve for your health, why also paying attention to the tech side, because there is a very large possibility that the lighting tech today is badly quality controlled.
The tool you posted is nice, but does not seem to show all that much. I started another thread here some time ago where its explained how to build your own oscope for cheaper than usual, and that might give more precise readings.
Ive contacted lightaware.org, theyre interested in me and maybe we could all do that and write them our stories, and make them and their influence grow.
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martin Its not just people like us that are more sensitive are affected. And it is nothing at fault healthwise with us.
Check this out:
https://m.phys.org/news/2017-07-scientific-dont-bulbsand-simple.html
And this:
https://www1.essex.ac.uk/psychology/overlays/2013-207.pdf
Most people can detect up to 3000Hz flicker and more sensitive can detect up to 4900Hz.
Being able to spot up to 4900Hz doesn't make you less healthy. It is the other way around. Does being able to see more colors mean that you are sick?
But being able to spot up to 4900Hz does make you susceptible to headaches at higher flicker frequencies than regular people. For other people to get the same headache that you get you should reduce the flicker frequencies proportionally. So for example if you get migraines at 100Hz regular people would get the same migraines that you get at half that.
Also you should be aware that LED go directly to 0 brightness they don't have inertia like incandescents. And LED bulbs flicker at the same time at many different frequencies. Here is an example of the frequencies at which a very good performing LED flickers:
@8 Hz: 0.000159 (-76.00 dB)
@19 Hz: 0.000070 (-83.14 dB)
@73 Hz: 0.000052 (-85.72 dB)
@100 Hz: 0.000451 (-66.92 dB) ***
@200 Hz: 0.000231 (-72.72 dB)
@300 Hz: 0.000111 (-79.13 dB)
@53001 Hz: 0.000051 (-85.91 dB)
@66529 Hz: 0.000055 (-85.12 dB)
@83056 Hz: 0.000052 (-85.75 dB)
@170730 Hz: 0.000050 (-85.94 dB)This bulb goes to 0 brightness for very short periods of time so it does not affect you. You can imagine that most of the bulbs that you can buy don't perfom as good as this one.
PuffyCloud I fixed the formatting of your above post since I am a moderator.
PuffyCloud and @number is?
JTL what @number are you referring to?
PuffyCloud @8, @19, @73, etc.
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Has anyone tried medications that help? Klonopin? Meclizine?
JTL Lets take the first one:
@8 Hz: 0.000159 (-76.00 dB )
The light of the LED bulb goes to almost 0 brightness (has the amplitude of -76.00 dB ) and stays at almost 0 brightness for 0.000159 seconds at a frequency of 8 Hz( 8 times a second). But because it is a very short period of time it should not cause problems.
The best LED bulbs stay dark for less then 0.00001 seconds at all flicker frequencies.
@guys let me reiterate. There is nothing wrong with you healthwise. You are just able to spot higher frequencies of flicker than most people and that is why you get migraines. For most people to get the same problems that you and I are having you just need a LED bulb and flickers at lower frequencies that can be spoted by most people.
There ARE light fixtures and LED bulbs that will not cause any problems. Also be AWARE that the bad input electricity can make a good flicker free LED bulb flicker and cause you problems.
And just because something is marketed as flicker free it does not make it so. Almost anything that flickers at or above 100 Hz is marketed as flicker free(and that is a low enough frequencie to cause problems).
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The fact that most of the people on this forum DO NOT get migraines dizziness or other problems from incandescents is PROOF that there is NOTHING WRONG HEALTHWISE with none of them.
Incandescents ARE NOT flicker free. They were supposed to be, because they were supposed to be used with DC electricity. They give light in a sine wave because of the heat inertia. Halogen bulbs have a more harsh flicker than normal incandescents because the wire is not as thick and there is lower inertia. LEDs have no inertia at all and there are few bulb driver design that give good quality light. This is why this forum exists. It would not exist if incandescents were still produced.
This is why this forum exists. It would not exist if incandescents were still produced.
Not true, most public lighting is fluorescent or LED, computer screens and similar aren't incandescent/halogen, and so fourth.
Hiding from bad lighting is good advice. But I never wanted to live in a dark room forever.
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PuffyCloud 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?
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 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.
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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.