your health

Hi guys, just thought I'd chip in. I'm 33 and I have some of the issues that are described in here. I haven't fully investigated all of them as possible causes for my issues. I suffer from migraines caused by temporal dithering. They are ALWAYS in my left eye. If I push up hard in the top right of my left eye where it meets my nose the pain largely goes away (the nausea doesn't). 30 mins on a Macbook these days can wipe me out for 2 days. I take Sumatriptan as a reliever which works but has undesirable side effects (makes me reallly groggy and slow, not good as I teach music production). I take Propanalol as a preventative, but this has made me gain a fair bit of weight.

With regards to other possibly related issues:

• I have a problem with my temporomandibular - it clicks every time I open and close my mouth. I've always had this. Any thoughts as to what to do about this would be great.
• I get some distortion in my left ear with loud high / midrange frequencies, particularly when my ears has undergone pressure change like having been on a plane
• I also grind my teeth although have never looked into any treatment for this.
• when I take Sumatriptan to cause a migraine I feel like my left sinus clears (like I've taken a bit blast of eucalyptus when I have a cold) and this happens before the migraine lifts

For me prevention is all about avoiding the triggers, but this is tricky since I teach music production and everyone uses Macbooks. Exercise helps but isn't the solution. Hope that helps someone, would be great to put all this data together at some point as there could be something in all this... :]

si_edgey There is so much stuff here that is similar to me. I bet if we talked further we might be able to find more similarities (and maybe connect those similarities). The TMJ, ear problems, hyperacusis (I believe that's what you describe. I have it) are all familiar. Just posting now because I'm not feeling well at all and might forget.

I think a lot of us have TMJ issues. But then again, I think a huge percentage of the population does. I have sinus issues - although not acute, I've been on some kind of decongestant/antihistamine since I was a teenager - and TMJ (I wear a nightguard and that blunts 90+% of the symptoms). But the eyestrain started only about 5 years ago... roughly the same time that I started needing reading glasses.

The #1 co-mordidity I ave seen among LED sensitive folks, and migraine suffers in general, is sinus problems. A lot of the nerves that are involved in the issues we are dealing with run through the various sinus cavities and the pallete/roof of your mouth. I've talked to 2 people who had to have pallete surgery for unrelated reasons and in both cases as a side effect they were completely cured of thier light sensitivity.

If I had to make a rough guess I would say the correlation between folks I have met IRL and online with light sensitivity and sinus issues is over 95%.

This is a good topic to discuss and share. There must a common link, a common factor why all of us gets eye strain, yet other people do not. There must be something that each of us have in common.

Reading this thread, I noticed that many people have sinus. I also have sinus. This could be one of the reason, but I suspect not the main reason. Likely it is a combination of multiple factors, we just dont know what yet.

degen The problem with many low motion blur monitors as they use a PWM type backlight on purpose to reduce motion blur, like a CRT. Many of them are TN panels with dithering too.

Maybe OLED in the future would be a viable option.

Harrison Sure.

I won't go into the backstory, but I was suffering from a sense of "Fullness" in my right ear and a pain in my right jawline, about an inch below where the TMJ is. I went to my regular doctor, who referred me to a crappy ENT. The crappy ENT looked and didn't see anything wrong, gave me a course of steroid and antibiotics and sent me on my way. Neither helped. I then found a specialist in facial pain, I went to see him, he wasn't much of a help, I then saw a dermotologist, he said it was some skin infection in my ear, gave me drops, they didnt help. I went to a dentist, examined me, said nothign was wrong, sent me on my way. Basically every examination came back negative.

I finally got in to see an excellent ENT who thought to actually do a Cat scan of my head (who'd a thunk?) and the scan showed my right sphenoid sinus was complety blocked. The opening had sealed and the sinus was filled with infected mucus. He said the sphenoid sinus is much further back in the head, and you can be breathing 100% clearly and still have an infected sphenoid. He also said that area of the head has a lot of nerves running through it, and he hypothesized the ear and jaw pain was actually refered pain from the sphenoid sinus irritating nerves in that spot, and there was nothing actually wrong with my ear or jaw.

The only way to solve this was surgery, which I underwent. When I came out of the surgery the jaw pain was completely gone, and the ear sensation cleared up in about 2 weeks, and both have been gone since then (about 3 years now)

It hasn't done anything for my light sensitivity, but I have met 2 people who had thier light sensitivity cured via pallete surgery for an unrelated condition. Whichleads me to believe the nerves that are involved in the eye strain run through the sinus/pallete area, since so many of us suffer from sinus issues as well

Harrison Good luck

Harrison My theory: Our eyes are permanentely "tired" and a bit strainend which is however perfectly ok in everyday life.

So I've seen so man specialists about this issue I've lost count, and one thing is unanimous among them, this is NOT an eye problem. It's a brain problem. Our brains are mishandling the signal that is triggering us, and the result is over actuation of the muscles around the eyes.

ensete Ive seen a famous neurologist about this issue, but he has been of no help. Told me it is overuse syndrome, that man is not made to look into any display for 8 hours a day and that he can not help other than to suggest to take a month off all displays and see. Did not seem interested in my explanation about older devices not causing it and immediate relief there. Other suggestion was that it is psychosomatic.
It is difficult to find doctors interested in exploring new unexplained topics.

I agree that it must be health related, as most people just do not have this issue. Separating brain and eye issue is difficult though, as they influence each other (eyes send information into the brain, but brain is also taught what to see and notice). Ive seen one post about macular pigment, has anyone here ever got it tested or tried to take supplements for it? https://glarminy.com/2017/09/27/macular-pigment-eye-supplements-meso-zeaxanthin-safety/comment-page-1/

martin Did not seem interested in my explanation about older devices not causing it and immediate relief there. Other suggestion was that it is psychosomatic.
It is difficult to find doctors interested in exploring new unexplained topics.

That's the same the neurologist I once visited told me. He had no explanation and even said "this is impossible".

I went to see an eye specialist at a local hospital a while back. The doctor, an Ophthamologist, conducted the retinoscopy procedure on my eyes. The results shows that my eyes have high cup-to-disc ratio. I asked the doctor, what does this mean, is it bad? The doctor said that I have an irregular optic nerve. "Irregular" because of the high cup to disc ratio. But the doctor says this does not necessarily mean bad, it just means different.

I asked is having an irregular optic nerve is the reason why I suffer eye strain from PWM and other display devices? The doctor cant say that for sure, because there are no study done on this yet. The doctor said, many who came to the hospital seeking treatment for eye strain, most if not all of them does not know the reason why. The word the doctor said, most of them are not "observant" enough to know the cause of their eye strain, unlike me, the doctor said, who has identified the specific causes, which is due to PWM and intel graphics driver.

So, many people get eye strain, but most of them believed it is because of their eyes, and they are not aware it is actually because of the technology used in some of these display that is causing the eye strain. We need a university or some research hospital to do a study on this to see how big this problem really is, and to find the connection, the common factor why some of us gets this eye strain, while others do not.

Anyway, back to my medical result, due to the high cup-to-disc ratio, the doctor advised me to undergo further test to rule out Glaucoma, which is a disease that damages the eye’s optic nerve due to buildup of pressure in the eyes. Without proper care and treatment, glaucoma can cause total permanent blindness. Scary.

I have undertaken the test recommended by the doctor, which is the Humphrey Visual Field Test, the result shows my left eye is normal, but my right eye condition is “borderline”. The doctor advised me to take the test every year just as a precaution.

These eye strain that we are having, it might be caused by pressure build up in our optic nerve, which can be dangerous. So if we do get eye strain, especially those really bad eye strain from laptops or phones, we better stop using it. Meaning dont force ourselves to use devices that causing us eye strain. Sometime I too "force" myself to really use a specific device for long periods of time (because I really want to use that device), and that got me very severe eye strain. I have stopped doing that. Dont get me wrong, I still do use devices that causes me eye strain, to test it out to see if I can really use it, sometimes experimenting a few stuff to find a solution, but I wont overdo it. For devices that give me eye strain, I would just using it for short periods of time, then rest to let the eyes recover. I dont want to take any risk of damaging my optic nerve.

Has anyone else done this retinoscopy procedure? If not yet, maybe you should consider doing it too, and we can compare our test results, so see if there is any common factor or similarities that might explain our condition.

I've had my eyes checked by 4 eye doctors. I think a retinoscopy has also been done. No abnormalities. I do have a rupture in the cornea in the right eye, which was caused by a laptop bag carry belt that whipped to the eye as it got disconnected from the connector. In fact, it is the right eye that is always more bloodshot when I have this eye strain from PWM or temporal dithering.

Otherwise I've always been very healthy, I've had no other "weird" symptoms from anything else. But I think this seems to be the case for many others. The only issue they have with their health, is strained eyes from PWM or dithering. It is frustrating that neurologists etc. are trying to suggest that this is psychosomatic, as it just clearly is not. And I really can tell this, as I've had this for 25 years.

One thing though - dieting, e.g. consuming less calories than needed, makes this problem worse. Especially ketogenic dieting. But still - it makes it worse only if there is a display that irritates the eyes. I've done some intermittent fasting and on days where I've had 16-24 h fast, if there is a display that irritates, my eyes get more bloodshot and recover more slowly. (Other people report also having red eyes while doing ketogenic diet, so I think this is kinda normal, if you do something a bit extreme, some stuff like this can happen in the body)

Has anyone been able to find any doctor who would acknowledge this problem and admit that it is a problem and is not psychosomatic? I'm in the process of trying to find an eye doctor who would actually see this happening to my eyes - I'd go with normal clear eyes to the appointment, then use e.g. a Samsung AMOLED phone for 30 minutes, then the doctor could see with his own eyes that my eyes are clearly bloodshot and he'd have to acknowledge that this is a thing that really happens.

Of course, people who do not have this problem are usually unable to relate to this, so the doctor could probably still claim that is is psychosomatic that I somehow just produce the bloodshot eyes in this situation. But I assure you that this will happen every time, even if there is no way of knowing if the display has PWM, so a double blind test could be performed as well. It is quite easy to do, as some displays have PWM at 99% brightness and no PWM at 100%. So the doctor could adjust the brightness value by 1% which is not something that you would be able to notice by eye, but you would be able to see the eyes go bloodshot if the brightness is 99%