your health
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
KM Well my right eye also starts to hurt first, but I got mild astigmatism which is 0.75 on the right eye and 0.25 on the left, so it would explain this. But for you guys who do not have astigmatism, I am not sure why. Maybe one of our eyes are always stronger? Or maybe when we look at things, one of the eyes concentrates more thant the other?
randomboolean Not sure. If I have astigmatism, the eye doctors didn't tell me. I only have this problem when I look at most displays or when there is certain artificial lighting in sight range. It's the eye I see sharpest with.
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 Is cannabis the only thing that has helped?
Pretty much. Why should I use less effective anti-seizure medications that have worse side effects?
Could it be related to anxiety?
Doubt it. I guess it's some sort of neurological interaction between eyes and over excitation of neurons? Similar to photosensitive epilepsy in my case.
This post from the iPhone X eyestrain thread is interesting.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/eye-strain-while-using-iphone-x.2085427/page-40#post-25832913
I'm reading over the forum, AFAIK the main issue with iPhone X is PWM because of the OLED display? I've found other iPhone models like iPhone 8 to cause eye strain, even though it doesn't use PWM.
I'm a big fan of Android and still stuck with my Galaxy S5, going to try the S9 when it comes out, but I'm not holding my breath.
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ryans AFAIK the main issue with iPhone X is PWM because of the OLED display
Yes, possibly the Face ID as well since it's a pulsating infrared LED, and staring at an infrared LED is similar to looking at the sun. I've accidently looked into a gaming mouse sensor with an infrared LED and it hurt real bad. DON'T DO THAT.
JTL That's very interesting. In this post someone claims the infrared LED is still pulsating even when all Face ID options are turned off: https://discussions.apple.com/message/32659898#message32659898
Nice to know a simple camera can detect this light.
Has anyone tried any supplements like L-Theanine or Ashwagandha to help them? The only one seeming to help people on here was Lutein which has done nothing for me.
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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.
Might be worth trying the exercises.
Interestingly, in spite of all the things I've been doing RIGHT lately (diet, exercise, supplements) I've had a bit of a slide the past few days...
My new Nintendo Switch is pretty much unusable (which makes me sad, might have to return or sell a system I saved up for), and even my XBox One was giving me issues last night just watching YouTube which normally NEVER bothers me.
On the other hand, I had a couple other health issues that caused me to discontinue my supplements for a few days, so I wonder if I'm really so retinally deficient that...
I've experienced some improvement in my photosensitivity lately, for about 2 weeks now. Found out that my SSRI medication was causing mydriasis. I researched the mechanism and was able to counter it with a low dose of a drug that blocks the serotonin receptor responsible (5-HT2a).