Mrak0020 Hello Mrak, yes I speak spanish but i'm sorry to say I haven't found anything helpful yet. I don't think there is even more information outside this forum and a couple more, some scattered Reddit threads and some Youtube videos. This is leading me to believe that we are a tiny statistic, probably less than 1% of the population.
Welcome to LED Strain!
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DiegoRojo Oh I see
Thank you.
I am not sure about statistics, it could be just some specifics of how people discuss this problem in internet...
My ophthalmologist said immediately that she has other patients like me, when I described symptoms.
@DiegoRojo
I feel like those complaints are just scattered through the internet in English. Something like this comment about a monitor:
https://libredd.it/r/Monitors/comments/pmmt2l/trying_to_reduce_eye_strain_and_headaches_from/
It says: "I read about (some other monitor) having PWM flicker and decided to upgrade to a monitor that is supposedly PWM free (LG 27UL850-W). But now that I have the LG I still get bad eye-strain and headaches from looking at the monitor even just for a few minutes. It feels like the colors, especially the white color pierce through my eyes even at lowest brightness if that makes any sense. "
These symptoms make so much sense to me.
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Mrak0020 It is the same for me, adjusting brightness hasn't modified the equation in a significant way for me. I'm not even sure OLED Saver is helping in some way. Maybe it is, but in a very mild way.
I even bought a while back some prescription lenses with a very fine adjustment for relaxing my eyesight, with blue light filter. They don't help with this issue.
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DiegoRojo I did that too, every thing you mentioned, and much much more (uv blocking medical googles, every anti-blue lenses, every possible image and every subpixel color tested, every possible barrier used: every glass, film, transparent and half-transparent thing, including oil; a single pixel image tested; every phone in the malls tested etc. etc. etc.). It goes trough everything.
My best scientific suggestions at this time are:
- an exorcist
- a silver bullet
- a holy water (if it has any water protection, leave it underwater for a day)
- pack it and give as a birthday present for your mortal enemy
I am not sure if I am joking.
There might be some sort of laser...ish effect (not an actual laser, but some quality of light that resembles laser enough to irritate a retina and start some chain of reflexes in the eye that result in damage).
There also could be something damaging in spectrum, visible or invisible, that I am missing right now.
Those are two best ideas at this time. The best way to find out is to tear more screens apart and look inside.
Hi, sorry for my bad english...
My name is Manuel, an 25 year old man from Venezuela. I discovered this forum some weeks ago, its fascinating the amount of information right here
Right now i am not so sure if pc/phones screens damaged my eyes or if my eyes are damaged for any other reason, but right now i cant enjoy using technology like years before.
I will try to make this post as short as possible, the thing is:
I didnt experience nothing weird with my eyes until i was like... 14 years old in 2010 (i was able to use any type of screen without problem until then)
From 2010 i started developing light sensitivity / photophobia, it wasn't a problem for me at the beginning....but then it started becoming really hard to go outside on sunny days, then since 2016 the sensitivity expanded to phones and tv screens, and i dont only mean brightness...i also cant tolerate certain colors in certain situations, like if some colors are disgusting to my brain depending of the day, also started getting eyestrain easily than before.
So since 2010 i was diagnosed with....
Photophobia (literally "photophobia" without an explanation behind)
"You have nothing... just blink more"
Dry eyes
You just need glasses (i got one....and still had eyestrain lol)
Myopia and astigmatism
ASD (Asperger in 2011..)
And more recently..in 2018...after like 4 or 5 ophthalmologists (and without counting my last psychiatrist) i was diagnosed with "Retinitis" .
I have my doubts about the last 2 (ASD and retinitis) for many reasons...including that aside from photophobia i dont any other symptom from Retinitis, then my doubts about ASD are more complex to explain and i dont want to make the post longer.
What i know for sure right now is that i am sensitive to pwm flickering, and yes...i know there are other eyestrain factors but i am 100% sure pwm is a big one for me, i had used phones with and without pwm in the past and the difference is HUGE for me (like...getting extreme headache + burning sensation after 5 minutes using an low frecuency pwm phone vs getting eyestrain after 2 hours using an pwm free phone)
But off course, now there is the "colors problem" since 2016, i dont know if it is psychological (my mood) , my brain, my retina or what....but now there are 2 scenarios when i watch an phone/tv screen (depends on the screen off course)
A) i have eyestrain quickly
B) i dont have eyestrain for a couple of hours if its pwm free...but i cant "enjoy" certain colors (its hard to explain)
Every new year is becoming more and more rare to experience the last scenario...the C) option : 0 eyestrain and 0 "color fatigue", so maybe in some years i will not be able to enjoy anything. Idk for sure.
Right now i am using an Motorola One Fusion -the standard model...not the plus one-...maybe the most eye friendly phone i ever had, its much better than my old s3 mini for example (i never liked how amoled displays looked to begin with) and much better than other lcd phones that uses pwm and gives me eyestrain, but still far from perfect....also i still dont find an phone that has "colors" i enjoy at 100%.
Right now I have to live like an vampire , if go outside i get an instant "extreme" burning sensation that last for days, if i stay inside my house i cant turn the lights on because it gives me eyestrain, if i let the sun go inside the house it gets worse....etc etc. I live more hours with headaches / migraine than without them, Its pretty horrible.
I am considering changing my fusion for another phone (not because of the screen...but for the weight, my fusion weights like an stone) right now the only 2 alternatives in my city without PWM are the realme 8 5g and the realme x50 5g (but i am not too sure about the last one, even if it is much better than the 8 5g i dont like not having the 3.5 jack...)
Like i said before, i know there are other eyestrain factors (and even more in my case) but what i know for sure is that if i buy a new phone it has to be at least pwm free....i know it wont be perfect (i guess the color problem is here to stay) but i guess it wont be worst than my fusion.
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nikomanuel96 Hola Manuel, I'm sorry you're going through this. Did the doctors tell you any cause for the photophobia, or recommend any treatment for it?
I'm still searching for a new phone to replace my Redmi Note 9S. You say the Moto One Fusion doesn't give you any eyestrain? It's good to know, and it's curious because it's a relatively new smartphone. Maybe this can help other people who is still searching, in my case I'm going to try first looking for some very low budget smartphone .
Right now, I'm considering between the Samsung A03/Motorola E7/Motorola G20. You probably know Mercadolibre (for people outside Latin America, it's a platform like Amazon). The good thing about buying there is that you have the option to return it if it doesn't suit you, 30 days from the moment you buy it. There are also some companies i didn't know about (Quantum [Brazilian], ZTL, Blu) and some others i thought they stopped doing cellphones (Alcatel, Nokia).
One last thing, in the past week i had the chance to test two other cellphones: a Nokia Lumia 930 and a TCL L5. I used them for about 10 minutes and i felt even worse eyestrain than with the Redmi, and both are very old cellphones. So now I'm starting to think this isn't a recent problem. Maybe in the last few years this bad technology became more mainstream, or there are new issues appearing and that is why more people is experiencing eyestrain and headaches (most complaints i found on Internet are for iPhone 12 & 13)
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DiegoRojo Not really, most doctors dont even know why i have light sensitivity in the first place, others said i just have to use eye drops / vitamins to reduce eye strain and that light sensitivity will also reduce with that (but it didn't work).
And yes, the Motorola One Fusion is maybe the best phone i ever had in this regard....but like i said before it's still not perfect, i still get eye strain using it but its much better than my older phones / family phones. (For example...i wasn't able to use my older phone for more than 5 minutes, now with the fusion i can use for a couple of hours or even more sometimes)
Now going back to the doctors thing, the last one (wich diagnosed me with retinitis) said photophobia is a common symptom....but at the same time it looks like my level of sensitivity is too high / abnormal considering that my retina is still in decent condition ....so there's has to be something more here.
And like i said before i doubt about that diagnosis because i lack any other symptoms of retinitis...so right now i am in a stage where i just dont want to waste more money on doctors, is like nobody knows what i have or what i need exactly.
Good luck with your search! Realme isn't popular over there? There a couple of decent budget phones with lcd that you can test....7i or even 8i.
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Since the beginning of the year and using the old laptop (Dell Precision 5520) I have had no issues, until … a couple weeks ago. I thought I had been exposed to COVID and was worried when I started having some kind of chest pressure. I felt really tired at times too, but that's not a very useful symptom. I went to the ER out of precaution, got checked and they found nothing. Today though, I am having this eye strain with this sort of pressure around the eyes that I recognized as what happened last year with the MacBook Pro 16. Now I am wondering if this is not a repeat of last year's issues, just with some slightly different symptoms at first (this time, I never felt palpitations, just this chest pressure). Conditions are, I suppose, similar to last year. I have been working many more consecutive hours on the laptop instead of being in the lab. Time of the year is about the same, but I am not sure this has any relevance. The only thing is that indirect sunlight is shining through the window and I remembered being bothered by it last year. But this is something I have noticed only since yesterday. How do we explain this progression of symptoms that don't affect the eyes at first (some kind of neurological issue?) I haven't seen any updates to the video drivers, but there has been some Windows updates in the last 2 weeks (I can't deactivate those because of IT). Now on what to do with all this … I am not sure. I still need a new laptop and have been paralyzed at the idea of buying a new one, especially if I can't tell right away if it's going to be a problem. In my case, it looks like it might be dose-related so I guess I need to be more cognizant of this in the future, although this is going to be a pain in my job. Any thoughts/comments appreciated.
Addendum: the other thing that might be happening is that I am working with overhead lighting that is quite apparently flickering (as I have now taken a slow-motion video with my phone). It's not on all the time, though, but again it could be a dose-dependent issue. I need to find some new bulbs but as this is attached to a dimmer (and I am renting, so no way to change this) I am not sure what to buy.
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Hi there. My name is Nicholas, and I´m a led strainer (this is beginning to feel as Anonimous ledstrainers now). I´ve been reading some of your stories to see if I can gain a better understanding of what´s going on with us, and what are you trying to do to overcome it, or a least to be able to live some sort of normal life again.
I wanted to tell you a little bit about my case, to see if someone has been experiencing the same – one thing about this condition is that it is very tricky, and there appears to be multiple factors at stake, as well as multiple potential triggers. But before that, I wanted to summarize the possible triggers (not causes, I think) of this affection. By reading most of your posts, triggers can include:
+regarding screens:
-LED, LCD, and even CRT screens (maybe not all of them, maybe specific types of LCD, maybe OLEDS, an even maybe not LCD screens)
-PWM flickering
-Low refresh rate
- temporal dithering
-Intel video drivers, other Windows 10 drivers
-External screen connection technologies (such as HDMI)
+Regarding other luminic sources
-Sunlight
-Reflected sunlight
-Incandescent light bulbs: old ones, LCD, LED; color temperature
Am I missing something? I think it would be good to make a list as comprehensive as posible, because it would help people to identify what triggers their simptoms.
I´m posting this here because… seemed the best place. Maybe we should start a new post to keep updated, so people can easily find out the triggers that might be affecting them. And maybe the post already exists, and I missed it - sorry if that´s the case.
A will summaryze my own problems in another post, so this is not too long.
Nicholas
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Hi! In december 2020 (a few days before Christmas) I made a clean install (win 10) and since then I had eye strain on my private computer (w10, amd gpu). The solution was to use a VGA-DVI-cable (thanks to ledstrain.org; of course I have also been to ophthalmologists but they wasn't helpful). At work I also have Windows 10 (Dell Latidude 5510, Windows 10 Education but there shouldn't be a difference) but without these problems (DVI, HDMI).
Now in December 2021 (again a few days before Christmas) I did nothing and suddenly I get eye strain also via vga. In the days before nothing was updated (no w10 update, no driver update). I just had a lot of stress the days/weeks before.
Now I am a bit at a loss what else I could try. Or what caused it (possibly the stress but relaxation has not helped so far).
i get headaches very easily when playing video games certain movement makes feel like car sickness movement throws me off balance.? adjust the lighting on the tv or not.?
Hello everyone!
I'm from Bulgaria, working in corporate (40 hours of emails each week ) and am 33.
I first found out that there is something wrong with newer displays when I went out and bought an Acer Predator XB271HUbmiprz gaming monitor which I found appalling upon several days of use and quickly returned. My eyes were bloodshot, had bad headaches and a vertigo-like feeling when trying to look at this monitor for more than 5 minutes.
After a year or so (2021) influenced by the HWUnboxed review on YouTube (must admit ) went out and gave high refresh rate IPS panels a second chance and bought the MSI Optix MAG274QRF-QD. It was a notch better, but it sucked again. So had to return it once more.
Long story short, I am being very cautious about my next monitor purchase. I will detail my experience with the above two in a post shortly.
Thanks to the admin team for coming up with the idea for this amazing forum!
Cheers!
41 year old physician. Only recently discovered this forum as I had a bout of dizziness during which I felt much worse while reading my desktop screen, an old dell u2412m 24 inch 16:10 ips display that I bought in 2015, which otherwise is very good and I never had problems with.
This took me down the rabbit hole, after learning about how all of these monitors are affecting us and using various techniques to adjust brightness and produce color which aren't very good for the eyes, to say nothing of poor motion and blur artifacts, etc. Along with, of course, my progressive myopia which I finally stabilized in 2015, and to which I will always blame optometrists. Nobody needs minus lenses, period. Just take kids outside and make them wear reading glasses for any heavy study, and they will be fine, they will never need glasses and turn into a nerd, they will enjoy life.
And besides I'm tired of wasting my life behind screens. Thinking of getting a laptop just to reduce overall computer use even though they are not as ergonomic. I just don't want to sit at a desk staring at these big screens my whole life.
Human eyes are designed for natural lighting and distance. That way your extraocular muscles, pupils, ciliary muscle, and blinking all work in tandem to resolve blur at all distances, control light passage, and flush and protect the ocular surface. All of this is reduced when you are sitting down staring at a fixed screen.
Notice how all of the superficial people, athletes, etc. never develop myopia or eye problems (until later life) while we nerds are cursed with myopia and strain. Hmmmm, wonder why that is. Can it maybe have something to do with sitting down staring at a screen your whole life?
People on this forum have serious problems with screens and you write a post that people here can find a bit insulting. We live in an age where there is screens like everywhere, in our homes, offices, cars, stores, public areas and so on. I think we all know that our eyes is made/optimized for natural lighting, and its good to be out playing in the nature.
dolph99 Notice how all of the superficial people, athletes, etc. never develop myopia or eye problems (until later life) while we nerds are cursed with myopia and strain. Hmmmm, wonder why that is. Can it maybe have something to do with sitting down staring at a screen your whole life?
This is just stupid. I know many people (tech/economic) who uses screens all day and have no problems, and if we ask some eye doctors they can confirm that “sporty people” also have eye problems.
dolph99 And besides I'm tired of wasting my life behind screens. Thinking of getting a laptop just to reduce overall computer use even though they are not as ergonomic. I just don't want to sit at a desk staring at these big screens my whole life.
Maybe this is your problem, not screens.
//Mike from Sweden
I am nobody special…Just an early 50's guy with the 'gift' to be able to see and feel the PWM of all those crazy lights. Always have. Just now they are everywhere. Too bad they try to make me crazy. Which can make my wife crazy, well not so much. Quit my job to stay sane and stay married last summer. So now I pretty much just keep the wood cut, pigs and chickens fed, and garden growing. But it does give me a little more time in the Forge. It was a great relief, (relief) may not be the right word, to find LEDStrain.org.
So, Thank You from Kentucky.
I am so happy to find this site! I am a 42 year old Project Manager from northwest Pennsylvania. I am generally sensitive to many types of substances and stimuli, but my "relationship" to LED sensitivity is one of the most pronounced and has noticeably affected my life. I work on a computer screen, and I've found that for some reason due to the LED back lighting, certain older model monitors (even WITH PWM!) are tolerable for me with no problem at all, while almost all modern monitors cause significant eye strain and other symptoms within minutes of use: for instance I can use an Asus VS247H-P for Dell P2014HT all day long, but a standard monitor from even 5 years ago like a LG or LG 24MP59HT-P or any gaming monitor like Asus PG279Q causes terrible eye strain. I'm confident this is an LED issue as certain modern LED desk lamps cause the same exact symptoms, and the monitors affect me even if the backlight is on but the screen is black. I am on a quest to find a modern monitor- hopefully a gaming monitor- that is tolerable! I will search the forum and start a post about this topic in case there are any others here who have a similar experience. Thank you for this site!